Curfew lifted for 4 hours, no stocks of rice, wheat flour, in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 August 2006, 12:03 GMT]
Stocks of rice, wheat flour and sugar have gone empty in private shops in Vadamaradchi and Valikamam sectors of Jaffna where curfew was lifted for 4 hours Thursday, when family members separated since last Friday due to the curfew were able to re-join. 300 meter long queues were seen in front of medical shops. No fuel was available. Curfew was lifted between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. in Valikamam and from noon till 4:00 p.m. in Vadamaradchi and Thenmaradchi, according to the announcement from Palaly military base. Curfew was not lifted in Jaffna Islets where residents were forced to bury more than 30 bodies as the region remains under Sri Lankan curfew continuously for 7 days.
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SLMM monitors leave Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 August 2006, 06:36 GMT]
Monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) posted in the Trincomalee district left for Colombo Thursday morning as the ground situation was not conducive for further monitoring. Trincomalee SLMM office located along the Inner Harbour Road in the east port town was closed down Wednesday and all six monitors led by SLMM Head of Trincomalee District Office (DO) Ove Janssen, left by road to Colombo, SLMM sources said.
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SLTMA condemns SLA search of Tamil daily

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 21:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA) in a statement issued Wednesday “condemned the cordon and search operation carried out by the Sri Lankan Armed (SLA) forces on the media office of the Tamil national daily Sudar Oli, Tuesday." The Tamil Media Alliance called upon the Minister to ensure that the "threats posed to the media freedom are stopped and to guarantee the safety and security of Tamil media persons in Sri Lanka."


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March for Peace campaign to be held in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 19:21 GMT]
A broad coalition of people against violence and war is to participate in a "March for Peace," organized by the National Anti-war Front (NAWF), that will begin at Hyde Park in Colombo at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, culminating in a peace rally at the Viharamahadevi open Air Theatre at 3.00 p.m, said a press release issued by the NAWF Chairman, Dr Kumar Rupesinghe.
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Newspaper delivery agent shot and killed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 13:40 GMT]
Soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army fired at a delivery van of the Uthayan, the Tamil daily published in Jaffna district, at Puthur junction near Atchchuveli Tuesday around 11:00 a.m, killing the newspaper agent. The delivery van was on it's way after distributing parcels of Uthayan Tuesday issue during the relaxation period of curfew, civil sources said. The curfew in Valikamam sector was relaxed between 10:00 a.m. and 01:00 p.m. In Vadamaradchi sector, the curfew was lifted from noon till 03:00 p.m.
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SL Military had 'precise coordinates' of bombed peace zone

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 11:32 GMT]
The site bombed by Sri Lankan jets on Monday had been designated a humanitarian zone and the LTTE had passed its coordinates on to the military via the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), NGO sources said Tuesday.
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UNICEF: "Bombing of innocent girls, shocking result of violence"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 11:12 GMT]
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Tuesday said that the bombing on Monday of a Vallipunam Sencholai compound in Mullaithivu district that reportedly killed dozens of girls and wounded many more is a "shocking result of the rising violence," in Sri Lanka and called on all parties to respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm. "These children are innocent victims of violence," said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director.
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US expresses sympathies to Colombo victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 09:39 GMT]
The United States Embassy in Colombo Tuesday said it condemned the slaying of Ketheshwaran Loganathan, the Deputy Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat of the Government of Sri Lanka, and expressed sympathies to families of those who perished in Monday's attack on the Pakistani High Commissioner's motorcade in Colombo.
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Sri Lankan government orders closure of schools one week ahead

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 18:46 GMT]


Sri Lanka's Education Ministry Monday ordered that all schools in the island should be closed from Tuesday till August 27. The reason given by the ministry for the closure is in connection with the South Asian Games which is to commence on August 18 in Colombo. Schools are to be reopened for the third term on August 28, according to the new directive, Education Ministry sources said.
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Bombed site ‘not military installation’ - SLMM

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 16:15 GMT]
International ceasefire monitors who visited the site of the Sri Lankan airstrike Monday which killed 61 school girls and wounded 129 said they couldn’t find “any evidence of military installations or weapons.” Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Ulf Henricsson, said monitors who visited Chencholai Valaham after the airstrike said they found at least 10 bomb craters and an unexploded bomb. “It was not a military installation, we can see [that],” Mr. Henricsson told Sri Lanka’s MTV television.
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Sencholai attack "pre-meditated, deliberate and vicious"- TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 11:23 GMT]
The parliamentary group of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) condemned Sri Lankan government’s attack on Sencholai childrens' home as "not merely atrocious and inhuman - it clearly has a genocidal intent...The heavy aerial bombardment on the premises clearly indicates that the attack was premeditated, deliberate and vicious," and appealed to the International Community "to take the earliest possible action to stop the Sri Lankan State from proceeding with its genocidal program," in an urgent press release issued in Colombo Monday.
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7 killed as Colombo bomb targets military convoy

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 08:18 GMT]
Seven persons, including four special commandos of Special Diplomatic Security Unit, providing VVIP escort to the vehicle of Pakistani High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, were killed in a three-wheeler explosion that targeted the military convoy in the heart of Colombo city, on Flower Road in Kolpity, Monday around 1:25 p.m. Pakistani Ambassador was unhurt in the explosion, Police said.
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Tigers repulse SLA counter-thrust

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 August 2006, 16:41 GMT]
A counter-thrust by the Sri Lanka Army’s (SLA) elite 53 division to recapture areas in Jaffna lost to the Liberation Tigers in the past two days was destroyed by LTTE forces using artillery and close quarter fighting, sources in Kilinochchi said. In Colombo, ambulances have been shuttling between Ratmalana and hospitals in the capital since early hours Sunday carrying military wounded, sources said.


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Colombo's claim of talks offer false - Puleedevan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 August 2006, 11:42 GMT]
Director of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Peace Secretariat, S. Puleedevan, denied the press reports which said that Tigers have made a fresh offer for talks. "There is absolutely no truth in these reports. Colombo is adamant in finding a military solution, and we are defending to safeguard our people and territory," said Puleedevan.
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Sri Lanka says "talks offer" as fighting continues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 August 2006, 08:11 GMT]
As heavy fighting continued between the Liberation Tigers and Sri Lanka’s military in the northern Jaffna peninsula, the government in Colombo claimed Sunday to have received on Friday an offer of talks from the LTTE and that it was accepting it. The government announcement came as press reports said the military’s air bridge to the Jaffna peninsula had been cut as the Palaly airbase continued to remain under LTTE artillery fire. The sea lines to Jaffna were also being disrupted by LTTE shelling of Trincomalee port.
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Allow free movement to civilians seeking safety, TNA appeals to Rajapakse

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 August 2006, 20:04 GMT]
Pointing out that the imposition of curfew in Jaffna Peninsula resulting in denial of legitimate right of civilians to move to safer areas is a severe violation of fundamental human rights, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) members appealed to Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse to "issue directions that no restriction whatever be imposed on civilians moving to safer and more secure places in order to ensure their personal safety and security," in a letter issued in Colombo Saturday, TNA sources said.
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Kethesh Loganathan shot dead

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 August 2006, 16:21 GMT]
Kethesh Logananathan, Deputy Secretary General of Sri Lanka Government's Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), and a former member of EPRLF, was shot dead by unknown gunmen near Vandervet place in Dehiwela Colombo at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Mr Loganathan received serious gunshot wounds and died on the way to Kalubowila Hospital, sources in Colombo said.
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37 killed, 93 wounded in Jaffna fighting

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 August 2006, 12:46 GMT]
25 Sri Lankan troopers, including 3 officers, were killed and 70 wounded during the past 24 hours in fighting in the Jaffna peninsula, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Brigadier Ajith Jayawardene, the acting defence spokesman who briefed media in Colombo Saturday. Meanwhile LTTE sources in Kilinochchi said 12 LTTE cadres were killed and 23 were wounded in the clashes.
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Co-chairs call for immediate cessation of hostilities, international investigation

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 August 2006, 06:49 GMT]
The Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Donor Conference for Sri Lanka Peace Process, the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Norway, Saturday called on the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to cease hostilities immediately and return to the negotiation table. The statement has called for independant, international investigations of serious human rights abuses, including the massacre of 16 Tamil and a Muslim NGO workers of the French NGO Action Faim and the alleged killing of Muslims. "Both parties should take immediate action to allow relief agencies to assist victims from all three ethnic groups and to grant access to disputed areas."
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LTTE shells hit Palaly, civilians urged to move

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 August 2006, 20:13 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) helicopters, an Mi-24 gunship and a Bell 212 transport, were damaged by LTTE shells which hit the base Friday night, military sources said. The LTTE Friday vowed to repel a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive on the Elephant Pass area and warned people living close to SLA positions in Thenmaradchchi and some of the islands off Jaffna, including the troubled Allaipiddy, to move away from Sri Lanka military positions for their own safety.
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