S.C Judge says Tamil rights were snatched away

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 06:58 GMT]
"The vast majority of the denizens of the north and east seek the restoration of their rights and not devolution of power. These are the rights which were snatched away from them by virtue of a mathematical innovation where the majority in the two provinces were added to the majority in the seven provinces and thus made a minority in the nine provinces" said Justice C.V Vigneswaran in his ceremonial acceptance speech Wednesday on being appointed as judge to Sri Lanka's Supreme Court.
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Tigers release Sinhalese fishermen

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 March 2001, 15:52 GMT]

The Liberation Tigers on Friday morning released two Sinhalese fishermen (on the left) who had been in their custody since last December. ICRC representatives transported D.U.Chandrabala and Ajith Kumarasiri to Vavuniya and handed them over to their relatives. Photo:TamilNet

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Thousands march for peace, self-determination

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 February 2001, 12:23 GMT]
More than twelve thousand people marched in Vavuniya and Mannar Saturday urging the Sri Lankan government to stop the war, start Norway mediated peace talks with the Liberation Tigers and recognise the Tamil peopleís right of self determination. Thousands marched through the Vavuniya and Mannar towns and in Murunkan. Christian and Buddhist clergymen, Members of Parliament of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation, local leaders of the Tamil United Liberation Front, Peopleís Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam etc., teachers, traders, students marched crying slogans and carrying banners and placards.
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Sri Lanka's PM decries insurrectionary Marxists

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 February 2001, 21:49 GMT]
"The murder of human beings is considered a crime in any society. It is totally against the principles of Buddhism" said Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka Friday, addressing the opening of an exhibition of photographs of people allegedly killed by the Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in Piliyandala, an outer suburb of Colombo, in 1988-89.
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Administrative devices said undermining Tamil areas

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 February 2001, 07:18 GMT]
Eechchilampattu, an agricultural region in the southern interior of the Trincomalee district, remains acutely underdeveloped because discriminatory administrative policies aimed at keeping it under the Seruvila local government body, local civil society activists said. Mr.S.Gunanayagam, a Justice of Peace and former chairman of the Kaddaiparichchan Village Council told TamilNet that the interior roads of the region are dilapidated or unusable and that there has been no local development work here for almost a decade because the Sinhala dominated Seruvila Pradeshiya Sabha refuses to allocate any funds for Eechchilampattu. "This is a general strategy adopted by Sinhala bureaucrats to undermine several isolated Tamil administrative units in the northern and eastern parts of the island", Mr. Gunanayagam said.
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PM invokes Ruhuna ethos for SLA recruiting

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 January 2001, 16:49 GMT]
A program to recruit ten thousand youth to the Sri Lanka army was begun Tuesday the Buddhist temple in the island's main pilgrimage centre. Sri Lanka's prime minister, Mr.Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka, who chaired the function said that it was a great achievement by the people of Ruhuna to have inaugurated the program to win the war from Kataragama. The southern interior of the island was called Ruhuna in medieval Sinhala. It is celebrated by Sinhala Buddhist nationalists as the ancient seat of resistance to Tamil dominance where Sinhala rulers mustered recruits to wage war on the armies of the Chola empire. Senior SLA officers and Buddhist monks took part in the program.
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Union demands Tamil GA for Trinco

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 January 2001, 20:12 GMT]
Samastha Lanka Government General Employees Union has requested the President to take steps to appoint a Tamil civil servant as the Government Agent (GA) of the Trincomalee district. A resolution to this effect was unanimously passed at the fourth annual general meeting of the Trincomalee branch of the union held last week.
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Cyclone caused disruptions ease

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 January 2001, 00:26 GMT]
Eastern Trincomalee district which was hit by cyclonic storm and heavy rains on Tuesday is limping back to normalcy with the restoration of pipe-borne water and electricity supply, local officials said.
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Tigers call for "unconditional talks in conducive climate"

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 November 2000, 12:57 GMT]
In his annual Heroes Day speech, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Mr.Velupillai Pirapaharan declared Monday that his organisation is prepared for unconditional peace talks with the Sri Lanka government but insisted on a process of de-escalation of war and the creation of a conducive climate of goodwill and normalcy in the Tamil homeland to facilitate such talks. A translation of Mr. Pirapahran's speech released by the LTTE from its London offices quoted him as saying that by normalcy he meant "the restoration of normal civilian life by removing the economic blockade and other restrictions imposed on the Tamil people".
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Families of murdered farmers suffering

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 November 2000, 13:12 GMT]
The families of seven Tamil farmers killed by Sinhalese home guards in Eeachilampathai AGA division last month have appealed to the government authorities for financial aid. The families from the Muttur area, south of Trincomalee town, are undergoing undue hardship due to the loss of the family breadwinner, according to the appeal.
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Mob attacks continue in Nuwara Eliya

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 October 2000, 16:19 GMT]
An second, 24 hour curfew was declared in several towns in the Nuwara Eliya district, about 100 km. east of Colombo, as communal violence against the Tamils continued for a second day. Sinhalese thugs set fire to twenty shops belonging to Tamils in Ginigathhena Monday afternoon, and fourteen people were injured in the riots, said sources.
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Four killed in communal violence

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 October 2000, 04:57 GMT]
Communal violence continued late Sunday in the hill town of Talawakele despite enforcement of curfew in several areas in the Nuwara Eliya district, Mr.Chandrasekaran, MP, said.
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Mobs attack protesters, burn down shops

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 October 2000, 12:42 GMT]
Riots broke out in the hill town of Talawakele, about 25 km. south-west of Nuwara Eliya as Sinhalese mobs attacked people protesting over the massacre of Tamil detainees at the Bindunuwewa detention centre last Wednesday. Two Tamils were killed and several others were wounded when police opened fire, said Mr. P.Chandrasekaran MP. The leader of the Upcountry People's Front also told TamilNet that the mobs later went on a rampage in the town, setting fire to several Tamil-owned shops.
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Tigers blame government for massacre

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 October 2000, 22:59 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Thursday blamed the Sri Lankan government for the massacre Wednesday of dozens of Tamil youths at a detention centre at Bandarawella by rampaging Sinhala villagers. In a statement from their London offices, the Tigers said they had evidence Sri Lankan security forces were "involved in organising, mobilising and instigating," the mob which attacked the centre. Those held at Bandarawella were neither members of the LTTE or child soldiers as the government had reported, but innocent civilians, the Tigers said. "The government of Sri Lanka should bear total responsibility for the serious consequences that might arise from continuing such genocidal assaults on innocent Tamil detainees," the statement said.
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SLMC to reap numbers game advantage

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 October 2000, 13:09 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress that won nine seats (five on PA list) to emerge Thursday as the key player in the numbers game to form a coalition government in Sri Lanka said it will not join the PA unconditionally. A party spokesman in the Ampara district told TamilNet that the PA should honour the conditions on which the SLMC supported the government in the elections to the Parliament. Meanwhile, Mr. A.L.M Yaseen, the SLMC's Ampara district secretary said his party would iterate the position of its late leader regarding PA strong man A.H.M Fowzie.
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No franchise for Mullaithivu Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 October 2000, 21:10 GMT]
None of the Tamil voters in the Mullaithivu district will be able to vote in elections to Sri Lanka's eleventh Parliament Tuesday 10 October. They have been precluded from the polls due to a decision by the Sri Lankan government not to have any polling booths in the district except one for 996 Sinhalese in Ibbanweva, a state backed settlement in the southern corner of Mullaithivu. "This is tantamount to denying them the exercise of their sovereignty as Sri Lankan citizens through the franchise or, in real terms, disfranchising them" said a political analyst in Colombo Monday asked to comment on the Mullaithivu situation.
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Two Policemen killed

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 October 2000, 09:19 GMT]
Two military trained policemen were killed and five wounded when the Liberation Tigers attacked the police station at Central Camp, about thirty kilometers south-west of Batticaloa, around 7.30 p.m. Wednesday, security sources said.
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Seven fishermen killed in Navy attack

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 September 2000, 09:56 GMT]
(Correction) At least seven fishermen were killed and seventeen were injured Friday night around 11.30 when the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) gunboats opened fire on their boats in the bay Trincomalee. The bodies of six fishermen, four Sinhalese and two Tamils, have been recovered so far from the sea.
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'Sihala Urumaya' contests in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 September 2000, 12:48 GMT]
A Sinhalese nationalist party, 'Sihala Urumaya' today submitted its nomination papers to contest the northern electoral districts of Jaffna and Vanni in the forthcoming general election.
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Sexual assault blamed on soldiers

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 September 2000, 17:05 GMT]
A teenage boy was admitted to Manthikai hospital, Point Pedro with bleeding from his genitals as a result of injuries sustained when he was molested by two persons whom the boy alleged were Sri Lanka Army soldiers from a camp in his village Kudaththanai, Jaffna.
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