CTTU speaks up for predicament of Vanni education

[TamilNet, Saturday, 24 March 2001, 14:22 GMT]
An acute dearth for teachers, textbooks and furniture prevails in the schools of the Vanni region, irreparable damaging the educational development of the childrenî, Mr. T. Mahasivam, General Secretary of the Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union (CTTU) told Tamilnet Saturday, commenting on his official visit to the north last week. The majority of the students in Vanni schools sit on mats supplied by the UNICEF. Most of the teachers do not have chairs to sit and teach. They have to be on their feet from morning till closing time, according to him. Mr. Mahasivam was in the Vanni for a week to attend meetings of his trade union branches in the Liberation Tigers controlled region. He returned Friday.
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Three killed in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 March 2001, 13:18 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army at Santhively, 24 kilometers north of Batticaloa, Friday handed over to the Eravur hospital the body of a civilian who was shot dead by troops lying in ambush in the interior of Korakallimadu, a hamlet near Kiran Thursday night. The family of Paththakkutti Nallarasa, 49, father of four, told Tamilnet that he was returning home with two friends last night around 8.30 p.m. when an SLA ambush party from the Santhively camp opened fire on them.
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Jaffna fisherman protest sea ban

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 March 2001, 10:45 GMT]
More than 2000 thousand fishermen sat in protest in front of the Assistant Government Agent's office in Pt. Pedro Monday demanding that the Sri Lankan government should lift the decade long draconian restrictions on fishing in the seas off the Jaffna coast.
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Mutur magistrate sets a precedent

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 March 2001, 10:23 GMT]
The Mutur Magistrate this week issued certificates that the deaths of seven Tamil farmers in the Poomarathadihchenai massacre in Trincomalee district were due to gunshot and cut injuries. Representatives of the International Committee of Red Cross on Thursday went to Poonagar and handed over the death certificates to the families of the dead, enabling them to claim compensation and relief. Magisterial inquests are not held for Tamils who are killed thus in border villages. As a consequence, hundreds of Tamil families in border villages that have lost their sole breadwinners are denied poverty relief as they cannot produce death certificates for the diseased required by the authorities to accept and process their applications.
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World Bank visits Batticaloa, deplores project

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 March 2001, 14:47 GMT]
The World Bank is not satisfied with the progress of the development work it is funding in the Batticaloa under the ëNortheast Irrigation and Agriculture Projectí (NIAP) said Bank officials Friday, winding up a three day visit to this eastern district. ce.
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Tigers release four Sinhala farmers

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 March 2001, 12:38 GMT]
Four Sinhala farmers from Padaviya, a region lying close to the Mullaithivu district, were released by the Liberation Tigers in the Vanni Thursday, Harasha Gunawardena, press officer of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Tamilnet. He said they would be handed over to their families in Padaviya tomorrow. Meanwhile, the chief incumbent of the Buddhist temple in Vavuniya Ven. Siyambalagaswewa Wimalasara Thero told Tamilnet that the release comes in the wake of a promise made to him by the Liberation Tigers when he met them in the Vanni on 19 February as a member of an inter-religious delegation.
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CWC calls off protest, settles for Rs.280

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 March 2001, 13:04 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers Congress called off its Satyagraha (protest) campaign Thursday, settling for a nine-rupee raise in the daily wage for tea workers. Instead of granting the 400-rupee monthly cost of living allowance demanded by the protesting work force and the CWC, the tea companies agreed to a 9 rupee (11 US cents) raise and also to pay a 5-rupee per day conditional work incentive (the current daily wage is 107 rupees-1.24 USD).
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Official apathy, malnutrition plague Trinco refugees

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 March 2001, 21:30 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) Over 75 percent of refugee children under five living in conflict zones of the northeastern province suffer from malnutrition, according to preliminary surveys by government and NGO officials presented at a three-day workshop inaugurated Wednesday morning at Trincomalee Town Hall under the auspices of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Planning and Implementation. The surveys indicate that the majority of mothers among the displaced in these regions suffer from malnutrition during pregnancy and after childbirth.
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CWC makes offer to end tea crisis

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 March 2001, 11:04 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers Congress leader Arumugan Thondaman said Wednesday following talks Wednesday with Minister for Labour Mr. Alavi Moulana MP that his union might settle for 250 rupees cost of living allowance instead of the 400 demanded by workers in Sri Lanka's tea plantations.
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Northeast doctors protest discrimination

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 March 2001, 15:50 GMT]
“Refusing to grant a section of employees working in a government department allowances because of their place of birth despite their equal standing with the other employees is discriminatory. This action compels us to the conclusion that the permanent residents of the north and east are second-class citizens” said a statement issued by doctors on strike in government hospitals in the north and east Tuesday.
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Police arrest released Tamil political prisoner

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 March 2001, 18:31 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police in Valaichenai town, 32 kilometres north of Batticaloa, arrested Monday a youth who had spent more than three years in the Kalutara prison and was released by the Colombo high court six months ago. Relatives said the Police arrested the youth on being told to do so by a Sri Lanka Army informant. “The re-arrest and detention of Tamil political prisoners who have been cleared and released by the courts makes a travesty of the judicial process in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, the Police and the army do it often for arbitrary reasons, purely on the strength of the powers given them under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Regulations”, a lawyer in Batticaloa told Tamilnet.
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For a few litres more....

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 March 2001, 14:22 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy barred more than eighty fishermen in Pallimunai, a coastal suburb of Mannar town, from setting out to sea since Thursday 8 March for taking in their boats 10 litres of kerosene above the quantity permitted under the unwritten restrictions of the Vanni embargo. A spokesman for the Pallimunai fishermen said Sunday that they had got special permission from the Police for taking the additional 10 litres per boat as they were going to fish in the seas near Iranaithivu and Naachchikudah, more than forty sea miles north of Mannar.
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War victims organize in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 March 2001, 10:34 GMT]
A Sinhala fisherman who lost a limb when the Sri Lanka Navy attacked his boat in the seas off Trincomalee was elected President of an association of persons disabled due to the war that was formed in the eastern port town this week. War and torture victims in the north and east get little assistance from the Sri Lankan government, due to red tape and sheer discrimination.
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SLA detains eight from refugee camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 March 2001, 12:29 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army arrested thirteen persons from the Poonthottam refugee camp in Vavuniya between Monday 5 March and Thursday this week, a human rights activist in the northern border town told Tamilnet Saturday. Troops rounded up the Poonthottam junction on Monday and arrested 10 young men and women when they were ascertained to be inmates of the refugee camp from their special identity cards. Five were released the following day. Relatives said the SLA has so far not permitted them visit the others who were detained. The army searched the Poonthottam refugee camp both during daytime and nights on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, arresting three.
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War widows said increasing because of war

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 22:19 GMT]
"Several young women live in the district, unable to come to a decision whether they are widows or not, as they do not know whether their missing husbands are dead or alive", said North-East Provincial Chief Secretary, Mr. G.Kirushnamoorthy, addressing a public meeting organized by the Provincial Ministry of Women Affairs at the Trincomalee Town Hall Thursday in connection with the International Women's Day.
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Marxists, UNP mark women's day, NGO flops

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 March 2001, 16:30 GMT]
The women's wing of Sri Lankas radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) staged a street play in the heart of Colombos business hub to mark International women's day.
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SLN clubbed, murdered father of seven -MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 March 2001, 22:01 GMT]
The murder of Kandaiah Uthayakumar, father of seven, who was arrested Wednesday 28 February by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Savalakaadu in Mannar should be investigated and the persons responsible should be brought to book, said Mr.Selvam Adaikalanathan, MP for the Vanni, in an appeal sent to the Sri Lankan President Sunday. He told TamilNet that the SLN personnel had surrounded and searched Uthayakumar's house around 9 p.m. Wednesday. They had accused Uthayakumar of smuggling banned commodities to the Vanni and assaulted him in front of his crying children.
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Plantation protest spreads

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 March 2001, 17:55 GMT]
Shops and businesses were closed in Hatton, a main town in Sri Lanka's tea producing central province, Friday in support of a spreading protest by plantation workers demanding a long due wage raise of four hundred rupees. More than 2000 tea workers in Kandy district went on strike Friday and held protest fasts in local Tamil temples, a spokesman for the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) told TamilNet.
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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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Students condemn Batticaloa Brigadier's comments

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 February 2001, 11:56 GMT]
Undergraduates of the Eastern University demonstrated Tuesday condemning the statement of the Sri Lanka army's Batticaloa brigade commander that their 'Pongu Thamil' program had been organised by the Liberation Tigers. Col. V.L.R Anthonis, the SLA commander for Batticaloa, charged Monday at a meeting for local journalists and school principals that the Liberation Tigers had organised the 'Pongu Thamil' rally by students and teachers of the Eastern University on 20 February. .
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