Sri Lanka's PM decries insurrectionary Marxists

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 February 2001, 21:49 GMT]
"The murder of human beings is considered a crime in any society. It is totally against the principles of Buddhism" said Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka Friday, addressing the opening of an exhibition of photographs of people allegedly killed by the Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in Piliyandala, an outer suburb of Colombo, in 1988-89.
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SLA tenders qualified apology as officer retires

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 January 2001, 21:30 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army in Batticaloa town Wednesday tendered a qualified public apology for massacring hundreds innocent civilians of this eastern district in the past in a handbill and over loud hailers. The SLA handbill, among other things, states "on some occasions people had to be murdered on the orders of certain commanders".
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Court to hear Mailanthanai massacre case

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 January 2001, 23:34 GMT]
(Newsfeature) The Mailanthanai massacre case in which 21 Sri Lanka army soldiers are accused of hacking to death 35 Tamils, including women, in a remote Batticaloa village on 9 August 1992 will be taken up for hearing in Colombo Monday lawyers appearing for the families of the victims said. "Justice delayed is justice denied. As with most cases in which SLA soldiers have been accused of massacring innocent Tamil civilians, a patently deliberate procrastinating strategy drawing on untenable pretexts is causing inordinate delays. This benefits the perpetrators of the murders," Mr.N. Kandasamy, a senior human rights activist in Colombo who has been monitoring the case for nine years told TamilNet Sunday.
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Marxist women protest in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 January 2001, 16:12 GMT]
A mass protest against the rising cost of living in Sri Lanka was led Tuesday in downtown Colombo by the women's wing of the radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP - People's Liberation Front). Hundreds of women carrying placards and shouting slogans gathered in front of the city's main railway station in Fort, Colombo's bustling business hub from 4 p.m. this afternoon for the protest. The cost of living in the island shot up when the cash strapped Sri Lankan government devalued the rupee and hiked up fuel prices last month in addition to taxes and heavy borrowing to finance a massive war budget.
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Compensation sought for Mutur victims

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 December 2000, 14:41 GMT]
The majority of the Tamils who lost their houses and other properties during the violence in Mutur in 1985 and 1990 have not been paid any compensation by the State, states a memorandum sent to the Minister of Reconstruction, Reconstruction and Rural Housing, Ms Ferial Ashraff.
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Red Cross volunteers rescue flood victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 November 2000, 23:24 GMT]
235 persons mostly women and children, marooned in several villages in the Tiger controlled areas in the Batticaloa district due to the breach of the dikes of Tharavaikulam were rescued late Monday evening by a group of volunteers of the local Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) under the co-ordination of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), officials said.
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Villagers appeal for bombing to stop

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 November 2000, 18:55 GMT]
An appeal has been made to the President of Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to stop the indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombing on Ralkulai and Navaladi villages in the Mutur division, south of eastern Trincomalee town. Hundreds of villagers have signed this memorandum, TamilNet sources in Mutur said.
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Two Policemen killed

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 October 2000, 09:19 GMT]
Two military trained policemen were killed and five wounded when the Liberation Tigers attacked the police station at Central Camp, about thirty kilometers south-west of Batticaloa, around 7.30 p.m. Wednesday, security sources said.
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Batticaloa massacre victims remembered

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 September 2000, 21:23 GMT]
A day of mourning was observed in three villages near Batticaloa town Saturday for the 184 people, including five infants and forty two children, who were gruesomely murdered in the Sri Lanka army camp here ten years ago on 9 September, 1990. A foundation stone was laid for a memorial and a meeting was held at the Sathurukkondaan Kannaki Amman temple in memory of the dead. Special offerings were made at the Tamil temples of the three villages and special services were held in the local churches.
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UNP first to seek Norway's help - Bondevik

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 August 2000, 19:03 GMT]
The United National Party was the first to seek Norway's assistance in the effort to find a political settlement to the ethnic conflict on the island when it was in power in 1990 according to Mr.Kjell Magne Bondevik, former Norwegian Prime Minister. he made this statement when delivering the keynote address at the commemoration meeting to mark the first death anniversary of veteran foreign minister A.C.S.Hameed, held at Colombo Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall Thursday evening.
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Ronnie De Mel receives cabinet portfolio

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 August 2000, 14:16 GMT]
Veteran UNP politician and former finance minister Mr. Ronnie De Mel, who crossed over to the ruling PA recently, was appointed as the Minister of Industrial Development Thursday.
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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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Drug shortage at Valaichenai Hospital

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 July 2000, 15:01 GMT]
The Government hospital in Valaichenai which serves nearly 38,000 people from more than 50 neighbouring villages is affected by shortage of drugs as supply for the third quarter of this year has not been sent, hospital sources said.
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Ronnie de Mel joins PA again

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 July 2000, 12:10 GMT]
A senior Sri Lankan opposition Parliamentarian joined the ranks of the government Thursday afternoon. Mr. Ronnie de Mel who served as minister of finance for eleven years from 1977 when the United National Party was in power in Sri Lanka has joined the government amidst speculation that a group of opposition MPs may cross over so as to enable the ruling People's Alliance to secure a two thirds majority in Parliament necessary for amending the constitution and prolonging the life of the national legislature sans the elections that are due between August and November this year.
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Sri Lankan officials to recover seized boats

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 June 2000, 05:14 GMT]
A three member team of Sri Lankan government officials will leave to Madras, India on Wednesday to take over all boats and engines seized by the Indian authorities from Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, during the period between 1990-1991.
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Judge warns EPRLF factions

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 June 2000, 17:42 GMT]
Two factions of the minor ex-Tamil militant group operating in Mannar with the Sri Lankan security forces were severely reprimanded by the Mannar district judge M.Ilancheliyan Wednesday for breaching the peace in Mannar town by quarreling with each other incessantly. The Police filed a case Wednesday in the Mannar courts against both factions of the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) for being a public nuisance and a threat to law and order in the town. The EPRLF was formerly a group that was fully backed by India.
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Indian assistance not possible - President

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 May 2000, 11:14 GMT]
The Sri Lankan President, Chandrika Kumaratunge, said today that she did not think that it was possible to obtain military assistance from India to alleviate the military situation in the northern Jaffna peninsula, according to an MP of the ruling People's Alliance who attended a meeting of the party's Parliamentary Group Wednesday between 10 and 12.30pm.
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Kumaratunga blames UNP for army woes

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 April 2000, 17:00 GMT]
The Sri Lankan President, in her first address to the country on the fall of the Elephant Pass-Iyakkachchi base, charged that the setbacks suffered by the army were mainly due to its weakening for eleven years by the UNP regime. She reiterated her stand that she would negotiate with the Tigers only if they laid down their weapons. She wowed to wrest the north and east back from the LTTE.
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Memorial for Vanthaarumoolai disappeared

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 March 2000, 06:41 GMT]
Relatives and people of Batticaloa are planning to erect a memorial as a rememberance to the 158 civilians who disappeared from the refugee camp at the Eastern University at Vanthaarumoolai, Batticloa, after being arrested and taken to the army camp by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) in 1990.
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Grenade lobbed at JVP office

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 March 2000, 14:28 GMT]
The Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna's (JVP) trade union office in a Colombo suburb was bombed by unidentifed persons this morning around 11 a.m. Computers and other equipment in the office at Dalugama, Keleniya were samshed up said a party source.
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