Air strike kills two civilians -VoT

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 1999, 16:41 GMT]
Two civilians were killed in a Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) bombing raid in the residential areas of Vaddakachchi in the Vanni around 11.45 a.m. this morning said the Voice of Tigers Radio (VoT) in its night news bulletin.
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Chemmani: alleged rape victim's body found

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 1999, 14:15 GMT]
Three human skeletons, including one suspected to be that of a woman allegedly raped and beaten to death by a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officer, were found today in a grave pointed out by ex-corporal Somaratna Rajapaksha, the key witness in the investigation into the mass graves at Chemmani and Ariyalai near Jaffna.
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Two skeletons found at Chemmani

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 September 1999, 11:03 GMT]
(Corrected) Investigators digging the alleged graves of civilians killed and buried by Sri Lankan security forces at Chemmani found two human skeletons this afternoon at a spot in which Forensic expert Prof. Chandrasiri Niriella, had earlier found evidence of human remains.
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Shells fired at Chavakachcheri SLA camp

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 September 1999, 21:01 GMT]
Liberation Tigers fired shells at Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp in the Chavakachcheri area in the Thenmaradchi Division from their positions in Pooneryn, on the southern side of the Kilaly lagoon, yesterday around 5.30 p.m. said sources.
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Mass graves judge reprimands Jaffna SLA commanders

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 September 1999, 12:58 GMT]
The Jaffna district judge Manikkavasagam Ilancheliyan severely reprimanded the Jaffna Sri Lankan Security Forces Commander Lohan Gunawardana and the Sri Lankan Army's 51 division General Officer Commanding (GOC) Maj.Gen.Nihal Marambe this afternoon for interfering in the Chemmmani court proceedings and investigations into the alleged mass graves of civilians arrested and believed to be killed by the army in the peninsula in 1996-97.
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Excavators fail to find bodies

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 September 1999, 12:49 GMT]
No bodies or human skeletal remains were found today by investigators who cleared and dug the area in Chemmani near Jaffna town where ex-corporal Somaratna Rajapksha had earlier claimed were four graves in which eight bodies of civilians arrested and allegedly killed by the Sri Lankan army were buried.
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Demonstration against acquisition of Palaly land

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 1999, 19:12 GMT]
The New Left Front (NLF) staged a demonstration close to the Wellawatte market in Colombo this morning demanding that the government withdraw the gazette notification to acquire several hundred acres of lands belonging to Tamil civilians in the Palaly area of the Jaffna peninsula.
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Batticaloa mass graves investigation urged on massacre anniversary

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 1999, 10:29 GMT]
Prayers and token fasts were held in Tamil temples and churches in many parts of the Batticaloa district today to mark the memory of the 158 Tamil refugees who went missing after they were arrested and dragged away by the Sri Lanka Army from the Eastern University campus at Vanthaarumoolai on September 5, 1990.
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Chemmani exhumations next week - AG

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 20:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Attorney General's Department said in a news release issued Tuesday night that the exhumations of alleged graves in Chemmani, Jaffna of civilians murdered by Sri Lanka Army troops would recommence on September 6.
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Ex-SLA troops identify further graves

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 16:04 GMT]
Former Sri Lanka Army Corporal Somaratna Rajapaksha and ex-soldier S.A.Perera today identified five more grave sites in the Ariyalai area in Jaffna where Tamil civilians arrested by Government troops were allegedly killed and buried.
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Ex-soldiers identify more Jaffna grave sites

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 18:35 GMT]
Fourteen places where scores of arrested Tamil civilians were allegedly killed and buried by the Sri Lanka Army in and around Chemmani near Jaffna town in 1996 and 1997 were identified today by ex-soldiers convicted in the rape and murder of the Jaffna school girl Krishanthy Kumarasamy.
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Protest over acquisition of historic Tamil temples

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 14:16 GMT]
The All Ceylon Hindu Congress faxed an urgent letter to the Sri Lankan President today drawing her attention to a gazette notification by the government to acquire the Keerimalai Naguleswarar temple and the Maviddapuram Kandaswamy temple for the expansion of the Palaly army base in Jaffna and urging her to suspend any action in this regard. Lands belonging thousands of civilians in the northern part of the Valikamam division of Jaffna along with the two temples and numerous Hindu shrines are to be acquired under Gazette Extraordinary No.1083/9 of June 8, 1999.
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Soldiers desecrate LTTE burial site

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 03:10 GMT]
A group of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on patrol damaged Libertion Tigers' war dead memorials at Eachchankulam, 9 km. west of Vavuniya town on Sunday, residents of the area said. The troops had also ordered the villagers to destroy the memorials, they added.
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Fact finding mission to Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 02:51 GMT]
N.A Obadage the Chairman of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority for North (RRAN) and the Commissioner General of Essential Services and Ms. Miru Poulos, the Political Officer and the 3rd Secretary to the High Commission for Australia in Sri Lanka, visited Vavuniya today, said sources.
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Four policemen killed in claymore blast

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 1999, 23:04 GMT]
Four Policemen including a Police Inspector were killed and a Sub Inspector was wounded when the jeep they were travelling in was hit by a claymore mine at Veerapuram, few kilometres from Cheddikulam in the Vavuniya district, around 10 a.m. this morning
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Key witness identifies Jaffna grave sites

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 1999, 12:28 GMT]
Ex. Sri Lanka Army Corporal Somaratna Rajapaksha identified five places near Jaffna town today in which, according to him, about forty-three civilians arrested and killed by Sri Lankan Security forces may lie buried. The Jaffna press was briefed on the developments by state counsel Yasantha Kothagoda this afternoon at Chemmani.
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Ex-soldier goes to identify Jaffna mass graves

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 1999, 07:15 GMT]
Somaratna Rajapaksha, the SLA corporal convicted in the rape and murder of the Jaffna school girl Krishanthi Kumarasamy, told the district judge in the northern town this morning that Police investigators who questioned him on the alleged mass graves in Chemmani did not record the names of SLA officials who, according to him, were involved in the arrest and killing of more than six hundred civilians in the peninsula in 1996-97.
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PLOTE calls Hartal in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 1999, 06:33 GMT]
Shops were closed and streets were deserted in Vavuniya this morning in response to the Hartal called by the PLOTE today as a token protest against attacks on the people of the northern town by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). Sources said there was no traffic on the roads.
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ACTC leader's Jaffna trip stalls

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 1999, 16:53 GMT]
The leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), Mr. Kumar Ponnambalam was denied an air ticket to Jaffna today because he had not obtained permission from the Ministry of Defence for visiting the north.
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Rains raise concerns about Chemmani probe

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 1999, 03:45 GMT]
Investigations on the mass graves of Jaffna civilians arrested and allegedly killed by Sri Lankan security forces in Chemmani might be delayed again until next year due to heavy rains that hit the northern peninsula in the early hours of the morning today according to human rights activists.
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