Sinhala nationalists contest in East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 August 2000, 14:23 GMT]
Two Sinhala nationalist parties are to contest in the next parliamentary elections in the eastern Batticaloa District. 'Bhumiputhra Party' or Sons of the Soil and 'Runhuna People's Party' filed their nominations Thursday, said sources.
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Anti-Tamil protesters threaten Karen Parker at UN

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2000, 14:34 GMT]
Karen Parker, a human rights lawyer was intimidated and threatened by anti-LTTE demonstrators protesting outside the United Nation in Geneva Friday. Some of the demonstrators had pursued her, screaming insults and confronted her when they caught up, Ms. Parker, who is a well known figure in legal circles interested in Sri Lanka, told TamilNet Monday. She had been rescued by a passing Swiss national, she said, adding that the matter had been reported to the Swiss police and would be filed with the UN's Special Rapporteur on the independence of the judiciary.
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Government abandons constitution bill

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 August 2000, 09:04 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government abandoned Tuesday its effort to introduce a new constitution. Mr.Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka, Minister for Public Administration and Plantations, informed the party leaders' meeting in Parliament today that the new constitution bill will not be further debated nor put to vote. The decision is yet to be announced on the floor of the house by the speaker.
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PA reiterates foremost status to Buddhism

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 August 2000, 15:55 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government reiterated Tuesday that the "foremost place" given to Buddhism in the constitution will not in anyway be changed under the new constitutional reform proposals to be tabled in Parliament on Thursday. A government spokesman said that the status of Buddhism would be further strengthened and enhanced in the new constitution.
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Buddhist monks urge Sinhalese to oppose 'package'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 August 2000, 14:54 GMT]
More than 1500 Buddhist monks marched in the Colombo suburb of Maharagama Tuesday afternoon to protest against the constitutional reforms that will be tabled in the Sri Lankan Parliament Thursday. A large number of lay people also took part in the march which wound its way through the populous suburb to the National Youth Council Auditorium where a protest meeting was held.
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Key witness in Batticaloa massacre threatened

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 July 2000, 12:28 GMT]
Father Joseph Ignatius Chandra, the key witness in the massacre of civilians in Batticaloa town by a section of the Sri Lanka army on May 17 has been threatened by armed persons suspected to be members of the Sri Lankan security forces and cadres of Tamil para-military groups operating with the Sri Lanka army in the east.
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PTA seen promoting arbitrary charges

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 July 2000, 17:33 GMT]
A Tamil youth against whom Sri Lanka's Attorney General had filed six cases for killing scores of Sri Lanka army soldiers in 1992 in the Batticaloa district and for massacring Sinhala civlians in a village in the Polannaruwa district was released by the Batticaloa high court Wednesday.
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'Autonomy package' - Much ado about nothing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 July 2000, 20:48 GMT]
"If Prabhaharan had not pulled out of talks with the UNP government in 1990 and with the PA in 1995, he too would have been doing this futile political jig in Colombo, going from pillar to post like us in search of the political solution" said the leader of an ex-Tamil militant group reacting to Sri Lanka's main opposition party's decision announced Tuesday that it will not support the constitutional reform package in Parliament.
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Numbers game bodes ill for package

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 July 2000, 23:45 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunge told the Tamil parties she met Friday for discussions on constitutional reforms aimed at resolving the ethnic conflict in the island that she will try to persuade the main opposition party, the United National Party (UNP), to consider their demands. If the UNP's response is not positive she would try to arrange a tripartite meeting between the government, the Tamil parties and the UNP to further discuss the points of disagreement the President told Tamil politicians who met her Friday afternoon.
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Monks call for political opposition to devolution package

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 June 2000, 18:52 GMT]
A leading Buddhist monk, Venerable Maduluwe Sobitha Thera, appealed on Thursday to members of Parliament belonging to the two major Sinhala dominated political parties not to become traitors to their own community by supporting the devolution package prepared by their leaders.
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LTTE urges Muslims to be vigilant

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 June 2000, 15:18 GMT]
In a leaflet in Tamil titled "Dear Muslim brothers/sisters" distributed widely in the Batticaloa and Amparai districts this week, the political section of the Liberation Tigers calls on Muslims to be vigilant against a campaign to foment divisions between them and the Tamil people in the east. The LTTE leaflet says that Muslims need not be concerned about "the imminent war of liberation that is soon to engulf the east."
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Artillery fire closes Jaffna air, sea ports - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 May 2000, 16:03 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military has suspended operations in Jaffna's lone sea port and cancelled flights from the single airstrip on the peninsula after both came under direct artillery fire, the Liberation Tigers said Friday. The LTTE said in a statement from its London offices that its guns had hit the runway at Palali airbase and military installations at Kankesanthurai sea port. Meanwhile, advancing columns of LTTE troops captured the areas of Madduvil and Sarasali today, the organization said, adding that fighting was raging at the strategic Sarasali junction.
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Chandrika, Ranil to discuss crisis

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 April 2000, 14:05 GMT]
The Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga invited the leader of the opposition Mr.Ranil Wickremesinghe today for talks on the military crisis in the north. The talks are scheduled for May 3 at the President's official residence in Colombo.
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Tamils protest in eastern town

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 March 2000, 06:24 GMT]
More than a thousand Tamils began a one day token fast in Kalmunai, forty kilometers south of Batticaloa, this morning around 8.30 a.m. to protest against what one of the organisers described as "ethnically prejudiced denial of a fully fledged Divisional Secretariat to the Tamils" in the Ampara district.
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Sinhala settlement plan derailed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 March 2000, 20:23 GMT]
A plan to settle Sinhala villagers in Kavatikuda, a Tamil village in Trincomalee, by a local ruling party organizer, has been stopped by the intervention of the Divisional Secretary of Trincomalee, said sources.
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Thangathurai murder accused transferred

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 February 2000, 21:20 GMT]
The Eastern High Court at its Trincomalee session today ruled that four of the seven accused in the murder of former TULF MP Thangathurai be transferred to Trincomalee prison from custody at Kalutara for their personal safety.
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CTTU urges withdrawal of Tamil text book

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 February 2000, 04:55 GMT]
The Ceylon Tamil Teachers Union(CTTU) Thursday requested the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to withdraw immediately a Grade-7 Tamil medium textbook -Social Studies and History- that was replete with language errors and distorted facts.
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No Tamil selected for Administrative Services: Pararajasingham

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 February 2000, 19:46 GMT]
None of the Tamil Language candidates who sat for the Limited Competitive Examination for the Sri Lanka Administrative Service held in July, 1999 were successful, according to a letter sent to the Sri Lankan President by the TULF Parliamentary Group Leader Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham.
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CID arrests Ponnambalam suspect

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 January 2000, 15:46 GMT]
Criminal Investigation Department officials have arrested a youth in connection with the assassination of Kumar Ponnambalam, police sources said.
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Ponnambalam aide identifies 'Shantha'

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 January 2000, 10:45 GMT]
All Ceylon Tamil Congress leader Kumar Ponnambalam's aide, G.Thomas has identified the person who met the late M.Ponnambalam. at his home on the day of his assassination as Shantha.
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