SLA accused of harassing Chavakachcheri fishermen

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 June 2005, 17:18 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has extended its firing practice in Chavakachcheri lagoon in Jaffna district thus depriving the livelihood of more than one hundred fisher families in the area, fisheries societies in Thenmaradchchi division said in a complaint to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in Jaffna Tuesday.
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"Rise to rout Buddhist Sinhala chauvinism"- Jaffna Undergrads

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 June 2005, 10:51 GMT]
"We, the Tamil people declare that we will defeat Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism and regain our traditional homeland from the occupation of armed forces. We will exercise our right to self determination in our land with our own strength," said a declaration of students of Jaffna campus read at the conclusion of a renaissance event "Voice of Tamil Nation" held Sunday at the Kailasapathy Auditorium.
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TNA urges Colombo to sign aid deal

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 June 2005, 09:06 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Saturday appealed to the Sri Lanka Government to sign the post-Tsunami agreement with the LTTE as agreed between the Government and the LTTE with Norwegian facilitation. Noting that the main barrier to signing the agreement, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), has quit the alliance, the TNA said it would support fully all steps taken in the right direction by the minority Government.
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JM failure will boost prospects for direct aid to Tigers- SLFP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2005, 10:31 GMT]
"If we fail to agree on the Joint Mechanism (JM) with the LTTE, it is likely that aid will go directly to the Tigers and LTTE controlled NGOs. The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) will be left out of the decision-making for reconstruction," said a propaganda leaflet circulated by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), main constituent of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government, Wednesday evening when it launched an awareness campaign in eighteen districts in the south of Sri Lanka to win support for the Joint Mechanism proposal, political sources in Colombo said.
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Donors urge immediate signing of tsunami agreement

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 June 2005, 09:08 GMT]
The Co-chairs of the Sri Lanka Donor Group who met in Washington D.C Monday, urged immediate signing of the agreement on tsunami reconstruction in order to ensure proper flow of reconstruction aid to tsunami victims in the NorthEast. The Co-chairs called on the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure that killings are stopped and paramilitaries are disarmed immediately as required in the Cease-Fire Agreement and the Liberation Tigers to stop killing Tamil informants, members of other Tamil groups, and to stop the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The Co-chairs of the Donor Group hoped that an agreement on tsunami reconstruction would help to build confidence between the two sides.
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South's opposition adds legitimacy to Tamil struggle- Elilan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2005, 14:57 GMT]
"The hostile opposition shown by Sinhala nationalist movements, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) to derail the proposed joint mechanism aimed at helping people devastated by tsunami, has clearly demonstrated to the international community the moral foundation of the Tamil liberation struggle and has brought to focus the urgent need to satisfy aspirations of the Tamil speaking people in their traditional homeland in northeast," said Mr.S.Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the LTTE Saturday.


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ADB funds housing project for war displaced Kanniya families

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 June 2005, 17:01 GMT]
A ninety-unit housing project for the first group of resettled families in Kanniya, Trincomalee, implemented by Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) with financial assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded North East Community Restoration and Development (NECORD) project was inaugurated Friday, sources said. Kanniya is a traditional Tamil village located about 8 km off north of east port town along Trincomalee-Anuradhapura road.
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AHRC fears "major breakdown of law and order"

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 May 2005, 21:59 GMT]
Saying it was shocked by the assassination Tuesday of a high ranking Sri Lankan military intelligence officer, Major Nisam Muthaliff, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said it was concerned at the escalation of violence, saying Sri Lanka is "heading towards a major breakdown of law and order."
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Military blocks LTTE commanders’ return

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2005, 14:17 GMT]
Amid the continuing cycle of violence in Sri Lanka’s eastern province, hopes of improving trust between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers are being undermined by Colombo’s refusal to provide safe passage to senior LTTE commanders and other cadres across Army-controlled areas, officials said. In the wake of the massacre of an LTTE political leader and his team when travelling by road through Army-controlled roads, there are accusations the use of helicopters is being denied to expose LTTE officials to paramilitary attack.
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Coercive Airpower in the Eelam Conflict- Taraki

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2005, 00:11 GMT]
The article on the use of airpower in Eelam conflict written by late Dharmeratnam Sivaram that appeared in the 19 May 1991 issue of the Island gains added significance in view of recent controversy over Liberation Tigers’ alleged possession of Czech made Zlin type Z-143 aircraft. Full text of the article is reproduced in this feature.


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20,000 quit SLA since truce - General

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2005, 13:56 GMT]
Revealing that over 20,000 soldiers had quit the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) since the February 2002 ceasefire, a top general blamed lack of appreciation of the military by the public and other departments of the state as key reasons for soldiers deserting their posts in the army, press reports in Colombo said. Officers also blamed poor infrastructure in camps and difficulties in obtaining home leave from duties in forward defence areas also as contributing to low morale.
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Clinton urges Sri Lankan political parties to support Joint Mechanism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 May 2005, 18:34 GMT]
Meeting the local and foreign media personnel in Colombo at the end of his tightly-scheduled two-day visit, Clinton said that he fully backs the proposed Joint Mechanism‚ as it could also lead to peace and reconciliation. Former US President Bill Clinton, who is also the UN special envoy for co-ordinating tsunami rebuilding process, on Saturday urged the political parties in the South to extend their support for the establishment of such a mechanism "to build a common future for everyone". Appreciating the ceasefire which is continuing for the past three years, Clinton said that Norway was facilitating and all the Sri Lankans should support the peace process.
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Sri Lanka can arm but LTTE cannot – SLMM chief

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 May 2005, 14:56 GMT]
Asked how the reported acquisition of one or two aircraft by the Liberation Tigers could be deemed a violation of the ceasefire agreement, when the massive acquisition of weaponry by the Sri Lankan state was not counted as a violation, the head of the international truce monitors in Sri Lanka, Hagrup Haukland, said Thursday that the Sri Lankan government had a legitimate right to arm itself, while the LTTE did not.
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JVP proposals ‘do not reflect ground realities’

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 May 2005, 10:46 GMT]
The ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP)’s proposals for an alternative to a joint mechanism with the Liberation Tigers to distributed international tsunami-related aid were not acceptable to Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga, as they did not reflect the ground realities in the Northeast, the Daily Mirror reported Friday.
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SLN denies basic rights to Mandaitivu residents- Civil Group

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 May 2005, 10:11 GMT]
Resettled displaced families in Mandaithivu area, a suburb of Jaffna town have been deprived of their basic rights by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and are also subjected to severe harassment, according to complaints lodged by the civil groups to security authorities. After the ceasefire agreement came into operation about one thousand displaced people are resettled in Mandaithivu, district secretariat sources said.
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‘Joint mechanism, trust fund part of peace process’

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 20:37 GMT]
The proposed Joint Mechanism and the Trust Fund for post-tsunami management are part of efforts to resume the Sri Lankan peace process, the European Union’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Mr. Wouter Wilton, said Wednesday when he met with the Liberation Tigers in Kilinochi.
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HRW laments Tamil killings

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 04:57 GMT]
Saying that ongoing killings and abductions throughout Sri Lanka have created “a climate of fear among Tamils across the country,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday called for “the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into the killings and abductions in order to identify those responsible and recommend measures to end the abuses.”
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Trinco LTTE political activists threatened by soldiers- Elilan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2005, 17:20 GMT]
Mr.S.Elilan, Trincomalee district political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in the Trincomalee district that a group of soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had threatened two cadres of the LTTE when they were engaged in political activities in Orr's Hill area, a suburb in the east port town Tuesday afternoon, sources said.
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"Horrendous consequences if peace process collapses"- TNA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2005, 10:39 GMT]
"The forces who opposed negotiations with the LTTE are forces committed tocontinuing the present structure of governance in this country, who want a unitary structure of government to continue, who want majority hegemony to continue. If these forces succeed, the peace process must inevitably collapse with all its horrendous consequences," said Mr.R.Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in a recent one-day debate on the current state of the peace process, parliamentary sources said.
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New Navy base on Jaffna coast

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 May 2005, 17:58 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has started preliminary work on a new naval base at Thiruvadinilai beach in Chulipuram, on the Jaffna peninsula’s western coast, reports said this week.


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