Jaffna commemorates "Valvettithurai massacre"

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 August 2004, 10:38 GMT]
People of Jaffna district and residents of Valvettithurai town Monday commemorated the fifteenth anniversary of Valvettithurai massacre of 63 innocent Tamil people the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) which took place on August 2, 1989, civil groups said.

Large number of Tamil civilians Monday paid homage to the dead in the VVT massacre at the newly constructed memorial at the site where memorials of 12 LTTE military leaders including Kumarappa, Pulendran and Colonel Kittu stand, sources said.

The IPKF, which arrived in the northeast province in 1987 following the signing of Indo Sri Lanka peace agreement in a bid to resolve the ethnic conflict with a political solution, launched a military operation against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Some military analysts compared the "Valvettithurai massacre" to " Mylai massacre" in Vietnam in a military offensive against Vietnamese liberation struggle by the US Army.