Tigers, SLA fight artillery duels in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2001, 17:02 GMT]
Three soldiers were killed in heavy shelling by the Liberation Tigers on Sri Lanka army positions in Mirusuvil, southeast of Jaffna town Wednesday night. The bodies of the soldiers killed in the attack were taken to the Palaly military hospital in Jaffna.
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Tigers say SLN using civilians as human shield

[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 September 2001, 09:36 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers urged civilians in Jaffna to travel only in ships flying the ICRC's flag or the flags of other recognised international humanitarian organisation in a leaflet issued Saturday in the northern peninsula.
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Massacre victims remembered in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2001, 13:07 GMT]
Religious observances were held in Puthukudiyiruppu, 10 kilometres south of Batticaloa, Friday in remembrance of 17 men, women and children who were hacked to death allegedly by the Sri Lanka army soldiers on 21 September 1990. The Sri Lankan government has not made any effort so far to investigate the massacre. Several children escaped the massacre with machete and gunshot wounds. Nineteen civilians were killed here again on 5 December 1995, allegedly by the Special Task Force.
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Mannar Methodist Church farm youth killed

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 September 2001, 16:44 GMT]
The body of a youth shot by the Sri Lanka army on 8 September in Murunkan in Mannar was identified by his father Monday. The SLA claimed that the youth was a member of the Liberation Tigers and that some banned items such as matchboxes and bicycle spare parts were found near his body. However, the boy’s father, Mr. Peduduru Velichchore told the Mannar Hospital authorities that his son, Vincent Roy, 19, had gone to guard their field in the Jeevothayam farm late that night. Mr. Velichchore said he had heard about the shooting over a foreign Tamil radio broadcast.
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Fear said stifling Batticaloa massacre memory

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 September 2001, 15:51 GMT]
The brutal massacre of 184 Tamil villagers, including 42 children below the age of ten and several pregnant women, on 9 September 1990 in the Sri Lanka army camp in Saththurukondaan, on the outskirts of the Batticaloa town was commemorated Sunday in Valaichenai. A public meeting was organised by the Koralaipattu Human Rights Organisation (KHRO) in Valaichenai town to mark the eleventh anniversary of the massacre.
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Kilinochchi rising from rubble

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 September 2001, 13:53 GMT]
The Kilinochchi St. Theresa’s Girls’ School will start functioning in its former premises in the northern town after a gap of four years when the third term begins next week, education officials in Vavuniya said. St. Theresa’s is one of the two schools in the town that escaped complete destruction during Sri Lankan security forces operations and bombing five years ago. Kilinochchi was abandoned when the Sri Lanka army captured this once bustling town in August 1996. The Tigers overran the base and recaptured Kilinochchi in September 1998. A program to gradually rebuild and resettle the destroyed town began early this year. A project to remove thousands of anti personnel mines and mine fields left behind by the SLA was launched by the White Dove Movement (WDM) after the garrison fell. More than 50000 APLM’s and explosive booby traps have been recovered by the WDM in the Kilinochchi town and its environs so far, western aid agency sources in the Vanni said.
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Two killed in Vavuniya FDL skirmishes

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 September 2001, 10:08 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka army soldiers were killed and three were wounded in attacks by the Liberation Tigers in the Forward Defence Localities north of Vavuniya Thursday and Friday, military sources in Vavuniya said. The SLA shelled a forward defence locality in Pampaimadu Thursday morning, having observed a group of Tigers in the area. Three soldiers were wounded when the Tigers ambushed an SLA unit that was sent to clear the locality subsequently.
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Blast kills three, injures seven

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 August 2001, 06:21 GMT]
Two policemen and a civilian were killed in an explosjon near Kalmunai police station, 35 km. south of Batticaloa, around 8.30 a.m. Thursday morning. Seven civilians were wounded in the blast, accoring to police sources in Kalmunai.
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Attack said to mark Koneswary rape and murder

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 August 2001, 04:22 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa said that Tuesday's attack on the Sri Lanka Police detachement in the island's eastern province was carried out to mark the death of Koneswary Murugesapillai, a thirty five year old mother of three who was gang raped and murdered in front of her family allegedly by a group of Policemen from the Central Camp Police station on 21 August 1997. Koneswary was killed, according to her family, when the Policemenmen exploded a grenade on her lower abdomen to destroy evidence of the rape. None of the perpetrators of the woman's rape and murder have been brought to book so far.
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Tigers overrun Police camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 August 2001, 03:20 GMT]
At least twenty military trained policemen were killed and 20 wounded when the Liberation Tigers attacked and destroyed the main Police station at Central Camp, Monday night, police sources in Ampara said. Seven others were reported missing in the attack, the sources said. Central Camp is a Sinhala settlement, about 35 kilometers south west of Batticaloa near the district's border with Ampara.
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Jaffna students urge Colombo to stop bombing

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 August 2001, 16:11 GMT]
The Jaffna University Students Union (JUSU) appealed to international community "to intervene and safeguard the lives of Tamil students and civilians in the northeastern province from the continuing reprisal aerial attacks by the Sri Lanka Air Force". The JUSU in a statement issued Sunday said "aerial attacks targeting civilian positions such as schools and residential areas in northeast, particularly in Vanni and other Tigers controlled region are taking place almost daily. These indiscriminate aerial attacks have caused deaths and destruction to lives and properties of Tamil civilians".
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Controversial weapon meant for genocide alleges MP

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 August 2001, 14:26 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan government is going to deploy chemical weapons against the Tamils in the island's north and east. The aim is to annihilate them totally. The use of this dangerous chemical weapon against the Tamil people should be strongly condemned," said Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham, Tamil United Liberation Front MP for Batticaloa, addressing legislators who gathered Friday in the Sri Lankan Parliament and decided to press ahead with the no confidence motion against President Kumaratunga's government.
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LTTE condemns Sri Lankas purchase of chemical weapons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 August 2001, 09:17 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in a statement issued from its headquarters in Vanni, northern Sri Lanka today, warned the Kumaratunga government of disastrous consequences if it inducted the recently acquired weapons with chemical warheads into the north-eastern theatre of war.
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STF sets up camp in Thuraineelavanai library

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 August 2001, 20:12 GMT]
Commandos of the elite Special Task Force (STF) of the Sri Lankan security forces set up camp in a library 29 kilometres south of Batticaloa on Monday, sources said. Residents of the village of Thuraineelavanai said that the STF had moved into their village Monday evening and had occupied the local library.
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Violations increasing in Trincomalee -HRC

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 August 2001, 12:21 GMT]
Complaints against armed forces, police and state institutions received by the Trincomalee regional office of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) of Sri Lanka this year up to June has increased by eight fold compared to last year, states a report to the Head Office of the HRC in Colombo. "In last year 28.5 percent complaints were against the Police, 21 percent against the three armed forces and the rest against the state institutions in the Trincomalee district " said the report filed by the Trincomalee regional office of the HRC.
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Sri Lanka acquires ‘banned’ weapons

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 August 2001, 16:19 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) The Sri Lanka Army has acquired an infantry weapon with a chemical warhead whose use has been shunned internationally except by Russia due to the risk to civilians, press reports said this weekend. In an expose, the Sunday Leader said that the SLA had spent several million dollars to acquire 1000 units of the shoulder-fired RPO-A Shmel Rocket Launcher, but that amidst bribes sought by the SLA commander, Lt. General Lionel Ballagalle, the weapons delivered were of old stock and may have exceeded their shelf life. The US Defence Intelligence Agency says the weapon’s chemical warhead is toxic and hence dangerous even if it fails to detonate.
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TULF appeals against Army offensive

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 August 2001, 10:22 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front Friday urged President Chandrika Kumaratunge to instruct the Sri Lanka Army to stop launching a major operation in eastern province. "The intended military operation will cause mass destruction and loss of life among civilians. I wish to point out that this type of operation will not be tolerated by any right thinking people, in particular by the international community" said Mr.V.Anandasangaree, Senior Vice President of the TULF in a letter faxed tothe President.
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Army warns of assault on LTTE in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 August 2001, 20:02 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces in Batticaloa Thursday issued a press note warning about a major offensive assault in the eastern district, and urged civilians to move 4 km. away from the camps of the Liberation Tigers.
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Three civilians hospitalized after assault

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 August 2001, 22:55 GMT]
Three civilians severely injured in an indiscriminate attack by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers in Navanthurai, Jaffna, on Thursday were admitted to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The victims were Anthonithas Pedropillai (37), Sebastian Ivan (22), and Saminathan Gunaseelan (32), hospital sources said.
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Batticaloa workers said vulnerable to arrest, detention

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 August 2001, 15:50 GMT]
Ninety-three civilians in Batticaloa district arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces from January to 31 July this year are still in detention, according to Human Rights Commission officials in the eastern town Wednesday. Sixty-nine were arrested in Batticloa and twenty-four in other districts; the whereabouts of three persons arrested in Batticaloa is still not known, they said. Relatives said that the three have been presumed missing. Meanwhile Police sources in Colombo said that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested 20 Tamils so far in connection with the attack on the Katunayaka Sri Lanka Air Force base and international airport on 24 July.
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