SLA restricts civilian travel to Muttur east

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 November 2005, 17:42 GMT]
Civilians entering the Liberation Tigers controlled Muttur east territory in the Trincomalee district are now subjected to severe checking and interrogation by soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) manning the Kaddaiparichchan army camp checkpoint located on the border of the SLA and LTTE controlled areas. The defense establishment since last week has imposed this new security alert. In several instances civilians going to Muttur east were refused entry, sources said.

A group of Sri Lankan officials of the Education International (EI), all Sinhalese, were detained Wednesday from around 11 a.m. till 1 p.m. at the Kaddaiparichchan army checkpoint because they were Sinhalese.

Soldiers told them that they will not allow Sinhalese persons to enter the LTTE held areas without the permission of the defense higher authorities.

Sinhalese officials told the soldiers that they were going to two Tamil villages Cheenanveli and Uppooral in the Muttur east to lay foundation stones for new buildings of two schools, which were damaged by recent tsunami. Sinhalese officials were accompanied at that time by two expatriate officials of the N (O) VIB (Oxfam Netherlands), which is funding the reconstruction of these schools with the approval of the Colombo Education Ministry. Later Colombo defense establishment ordered the SLA authorities in Kaddaiparichchan camp to allow these Sinhala officials to go to LTTE held villages.

Again on Thursday morning soldiers at Kaddaiparichchan camp stopped a group of representatives of fisheries co-operative societies in the Trincomalee district to attend a discussion held in Chenaiyoor Central College. The discussion was arranged by the LTTE Trincomalee district political division to study the problems faced by fishermen in their areas. Soldiers told the representatives, all Tamils to return to Trincomalee as they had been instructed not to allow any outsiders to LTTE held areas.

The matter was immediately brought to the notice of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in the east port town and on the intervention of the monitoring group about an hour later, they were allowed to proceed to Muttur east, sources said.

Kaddaiparichchan army checkpoint is now closed after 7 p.m for civilian movement and no civilian to and from Muttur east is allowed to pass through the checkpoint thereafter till next day morning 6 a.m. Earlier this army-check point was opened for twenty-four hours, sources said.