Sinhala nationalists burn Norway's national flag

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 2004, 12:03 GMT]
Hundreds of Buddhist monks and Sinhala nationalist activists burnt Norway's national flag in front of the Norwegian embassy in Colombo Thursday, demanding that the scandinavian country should stop facilitating talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers. Sinhala nationalist protestors carrying placards and shouting slogans against Norway and the LTTE marched from the Viharamahadevi Park in central Colombo to the Norwegian embassy. "This country belongs to Sinhala Buddhists", "Kill LTTE leader Prabhaharan", the protestors shouted.
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Peace key to assisting children affected by war- UNICEF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 2004, 11:23 GMT]
Under the Action Plan, the only signed human rights agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, "close to 7,000 children enrolled back to school and more than 43,000 children received catch-up-education classes in the first half of the 2004 alone. 241 school buildings damaged or destroyed in the war were repaired or reconstructed, and 580 child soldiers and their families received social work assessments," the UNICEF said in a press release issued in Colombo today.
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Sri Lanka army behind attack on border post- LTTE

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 September 2004, 04:50 GMT]
An attack by a group of heavily armed men suspected to be Sri Lanka army commandos on the Liberation Tigers' border post in Pullumalai, 65 kilometres from Batticaloa, Tuesday night around 10.15 p.m. was repulsed, a senior LTTE official in Batticaloa said. "Two men in the group were killed in our counter fire according to mine clearing workers in the area who were forced by the attackers to carry their wounded across the border last night", he said after visiting the scene of attack Wedenesday morning.
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Tigers to repay public debt

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 September 2004, 12:33 GMT]
The Finance Division of the Liberation Tigers announced Monday it would start repaying another part of the war loan it raised from the people of Jaffna, Mannar, Mullaithivu and Vavuniya next week from 17 September. Tigers' Finance Division has been paying back its huge public debt in Jaffna in stages since Colombo signed a truce with Kilinochchi in February 2002. LTTE Finance Division issued certified bonds to individuals from whom it borrowed money for the 'Fund to Liberate the Soil'.
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Batticaloa shuts down for Black September massacres

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2004, 09:48 GMT]
A general shut down (Hartal) was observed in Batticaloa Sunday to mark the massacre of hundreds of civilians, including pregnant women, infants and children, by Sri Lanka army and paramilitaries working with it on 5 September, 1990. Roads were mostly deserted and shops closed in response to a call by leading civil society groups and MPs of the Tamil National Alliance to observe 5 September as a Black Day.
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"Civil society, key to advancing a Federal solution"- Rupesinghe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 September 2004, 00:46 GMT]
"The people in North and East want to control and plan their own future and develop their part of the country. This is the primary impulse behind the ISGA. An interim administration should be seen as a win-win solution to both sides... ISGA proposal has been developed and is the result of 25 years of civil war. The LTTE has presented its proposals for the first time. This has to be respected and acknowledged," said Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe, Civil Socieity Forum Chairman, talking to TamilNet this week.
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CWC will support Kumaratunga's government - Thondaman

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 September 2004, 08:39 GMT]
The Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) said Friday it would support President Chandrika Kumaratunga's United People's Freedom Front (UPFA), ending months of uncertainty over the future of her minority government. Mr. Arumugan Thondaman, leader of the CWC, said that his party's eight MPs will support the UPFA on issues from the ranks of the opposition. He said CWC will support the UPFA government without any conditions, to help it take forward the peace process. UPFA has 106 members in the 225 seat Sri Lankan Parliament, 7 short of the simple majority to run a stable government.
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New SLA commander visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 2004, 12:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka's army commander, Lieutenant General Shantha Kottegoda began a two day visit to Jaffna Thursday. He vistited Sri Lankan armed forces positions in Kankesanthurai, Palaly and in some parts of the islands off Jaffna, Sri Lankan military sources in the northern peninsula said. The SLA commander was also scheduled to visit the main entry point to the LTTE held areas in Jaffna and Vanni at Muhamalai after it closed to public traffic in the evening. This is Lt. Gen. Shantha Kottegoda's first visit to Jaffna after he assumed duties as SLA commander.
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French diplomats meet TNA foreign affairs committee

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 2004, 09:36 GMT]
“We told France if indeed talks on the ISGA commence, there is a good chance that an agreement could be reached in this matter. We said that this is exactly what the Singhalese are afraid of, as it would mean that they would no longer have a monopoly on power, and their hegemony over the Tamil nation will cease for once and for all time. We also said that it is for this reason that we suspect that the Sri Lankan government t is trying to provoke the LTTE to another war by destabilizing the east and supporting Tamil armed groups," said Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam TNA MP Thursday.
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Talks prospects bleak, until SL military backed violence ends- Balasingham

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2004, 22:53 GMT]
"Unless the [Sri Lanka] government takes effective measures to end this series of violence perpetrated on the LTTE, it is hard to imagine how one can seriously talk about recommencing peace talks," Balasingham, theoretician and advisor to the Liberation Tigers, told Norwegian Special envoy Erik Solheim when they held discussions Tuesday in London, LTTE peace secretariat website said.
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Murder accomplice says paramilitary cadre forced him

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2004, 17:37 GMT]
One of the suspects who were arrested on 24 August in connection with the murder of a girl in Sithamparapuram, 14 kilometres southeast of Vavuniya, told Vavuniya judge Mr. Manickavasagar Ilancheliyan Wednesday that the main suspect in the case, Mr. Mendis Thilakrajah, had forced him to help remove the body of the victim by threatening to harm his wife and children. “Thilakrajah threatened me saying that he was a member of the Varathar Ani and hence could hurt my family”, Mr. Malaiyandi Antonyraj, told the magistrate who recorded his confession.
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Big protest against Bata in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2004, 10:16 GMT]
More than a thousand Bata workers and rights activists demonstrated in downtown Colombo Wednesday, demanding the giant footwear manufacturer to take back the six hundred employees it sacked two months ago. The demonstrators also urged President Kumaratunga's government to repeal the Termination of Workmen's Services Act, which removes legal safeguards against indiscriminate lay offs by employers, according to organisers of the protest. Traffic was blocked by the protestors in the heart of Colombo's busy business hub.
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Wickremanayake rhetoric harmful- NLF

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2004, 06:40 GMT]
''Acting Defence Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake's warning to the Liberation Tigers not to push the Government to war and accusing the LTTE of continuing with killings and attacks on anti-LTTE elements in the East and in Colombo in violation of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in place, is not conducive to promoting a climate of peace,'' Mr Thirunavukkarasu, politburo member of the New Left Front (NLF), told TamilNet Tuesday
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SLA, LTTE to meet again in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2004, 13:34 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa said Tuesday they will meet Sri Lankan armed forces again after a long gap on Friday 3 September. The decision was announced following a discussion between Col. Ramesh, special commander of LTTE forces in the Batticaloa-Amparai District and Maj. Gen. (ret) Trond Furuhovde, head of the Nordic monitoring mission in Sri Lanka, Tuesday in Kokkaddicholai, 15 kilometres southwest of Batticaloa.
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"We will remain strong" - Balakumaran in Oslo

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 2004, 03:01 GMT]
"LTTE has been successfully resisting attempts to weaken its military and political strength during the peace time with the same courage and bravery it displayed during the time of war. Tamils seek a just peace and not a peace with surrender. LTTE leadership will not relent until political and social dignity is restored to the lives of Tamil people," said Mr.V.Balakumaran, a senior member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in his address as Chief Guest in the Silver Jubilee of the Tamil Sangam in Oslo Saturday .


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Price hikes ease Jaffna farmers' burden

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 2004, 10:50 GMT]
Despite unfavorable market conditions, prices of onions have increased from a July low of Rs.12 per kilo in Colombo markets, to a respectable Rs.40 to Rs.50 per kilo, according to traders dealing with perishable goods. Market watchers earlier warned that unplanned cultivation and increasing use of artifical fertilizers in Jaffna would result in oversupply leading to plunging market prices.
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Paramilitary operative shot dead in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 2004, 06:31 GMT]
A person said to be an informant to Sri Lanka Army was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Pepiliyana in Boralesgamuwa area in Colombo district, around 5 a.m, Saturday, police said. He was identified as Mr.Tissaveerasingam Dushyanthan alias Suresh. The man was an associate of the top paramilitary operative, PLOTE Mohan who was shot dead in Colombo earlier this month.
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Norway denies it gave military training to Tigers

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 2004, 14:04 GMT]
The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Colombo Friday denied media reports that Norway had allegedly provided military training to the Liberation Tigers. Local media reports were based on allegations about Norway's role in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict that were made at a conference organised by Sinhala nationalists in Oslo last week.
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Jaffna displaced to file FR applications in Supreme Court

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2004, 15:21 GMT]
About one hundred internally displaced families (IDP) who have been refused permission to resettle in their homes and do cultivation in their agricultural lands in high security zones in Valigamam north in Jaffna district are to file fundamental rights violation applications in the Supreme Court.
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Major General Tennekoon meets Jaffna civil officials

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2004, 14:49 GMT]
Major General Sunil Tennekon, newly appointed Jaffna area commander of the Sri Lanka Army, Thursday said problems confronting the people of Jaffna district could be solved when the current peace process progresses towards reaching a permanent solution, during a discussion at the Jaffna district secretariat presided by Government Agent Mr.S.Pathmanathan, sources said.
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