A9 opens for traffic on Sundays

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 April 2003, 11:58 GMT]
The A9 highway to Jaffna will be open for public traffic on Sundays, starting today, Sri Lanka military sources said. The road was opened last year following the cease fire agreement between the LTTE and Colombo. But it remained closed on Sundays despite pleas by the Tigers to keep it open 7 days of the week. The road to the Vanni in Mannar through the Uyilankulam entry point was also opened to public traffic on Sundays from today.
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Mannar HSZs discussed as re-settler loses arm

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 March 2003, 19:12 GMT]
The Bishop of Mannar said Saturday that High Security Zones (HSZs) are necessary only during war and that displaced people should return to their homes as there is peace now. The armed forces should understand this and leave the HSZs at least in stages, Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph said, speaking at a seminar in Mannar Saturday.
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Rising from the shambles of a counter insurgency campaign

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 February 2003, 18:01 GMT]
The large Vadamunai-Tharavai region, northwest of Batticaloa, is struggling to rise out of the havoc wreaked by one of the most sustained text book counter insurgency campaigns waged by the Sri Lanka army. A few hundred of the thousands of families which were driven out of their villages by the SLA more than 12 years ago have begun venturing back to their homesteads and lands here. But there are no schools for their children, no medical facilities for the sick, no transport, no sanitation and no basic amenities in any of the villages in the region.
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LTTE commanders, Parents meet

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 February 2003, 12:41 GMT]
Commanders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) officially met with more than five thousand parents of LTTE fighters and martyrs in Palugamam, Batticaloa district, first time after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (Mou), sources in Batticaloa said.
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SLA intelligence said bullying Mannar farmers

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 January 2003, 16:16 GMT]
The Mannar Farmers' Federation said Friday that soldiers from the Sri Lanka army's intelligence unit in the district were harassing and threatening local cultivators and agrarian officials to dissuade them from attending public functions in which representatives of the political and development divisions of the Liberation Tigers take part.
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Left PA government because Kumaratunga was bent on war - Minister

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 October 2002, 17:10 GMT]
“Prof. G.L Pieris, Mr. S. B Dissanayaka and I left People’s Alliance government last year because President Chandrika Kumaratunga was bent on war and detested peace. We could have been ministers in the PA government until 2005. But had we remained in the PA regime for the full term of the Parliament elected in 2000, war would have continued in this country. It is in this context that we left the PA and helped form a new government. The war came to an end because of this government,” said Sri Lanka’s Minister for Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Mr. Mahinda Wijesekera.
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Thirukkovil resentful, STF said concocting evidence

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 October 2002, 13:02 GMT]
“The Special Task Force will pose a dire threat to our lives as long it remains in this region. There is no security now for farmers who have to pass the Kanjirankudah STF camp to cultivate their fields. The sole access to more than twelve thousand acres of our people’s fields is controlled by the STF which has no qualms about killing us like animals,” said Mr. Ariyanayagam Chandra Nehru, the sole Tamil MP for the Amparai District, Monday.
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Peace pulls thousands to Kokkaddicholai festival

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 September 2002, 14:33 GMT]
The Chariot Festival of the Kokkaddicholai Thaanthonreeswarar Siva Temple in Batticaloa’s LTTE controlled western hinterland was celebrated Sunday. The prevailing peace between the Liberation Tigers and Colombo drew more than 25,000 devotees to the festival. According to local traditions, the temple’s original structure was built by provincial governors of the Chola Empire in the eleventh century. The island was a province of the powerful medieval Tamil empire for three centuries.
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Mines, apathy balk temple zone re-settlers

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 September 2002, 19:02 GMT]
Hundreds of families that were driven out of the environs of the historic Thiruketheeswaram temple in Mannar twelve years ago by Sri Lanka army operations are unable to go back to their villages because their paddy fields are mined and homes have been razed to the ground, rehabilitation officials in the district said.
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SLMM seeks return of Pesalai market, library

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 August 2002, 20:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission officials in Mannar said Saturday they visited three places occupied by the Sri Lankan security forces in the region on complaints from the Church and a widow. The Sri Lanka Police occupies the public cemetery, market building and the public library in Pesalai, 14 kilometres west of Mannar town.
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Ampara monitors say govt. apathy hampering work

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 June 2002, 21:10 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces continue to occupy two hospitals, ten schools and five Hindu Temples in the Ampara district. Speaking at a discussion arranged by a local journalists' association, Mr. Svein Myklebust, acting head of the SLMM for the Ampara district, said seventy-four complaints of cease-fire violations in the region have been received so far, adding, "the number of complaints is not a reflection of the ground reality." Meanwhile, the two LTTE nominees of the Ampara SLMM told TamilNet Colombo's apathy regarding their status is seriously hindering them from carrying out their duties as cease-fire monitors.
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Sinhala nationalist MPs vow to fight peace deal

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 May 2002, 22:07 GMT]
A large gathering of Sinhala Parliamentarians Tuesday resolved before the statue of King Duttu Gemunu in the island's ancient capital of Anuradhapura to struggle against what they called a conspiracy to divide Sri Lanka through peace talks with the Liberation Tigers. Duttu Gemunu was an ancient warrior extolled in Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition for killing Ellalan, a Tamil king of the island in the 2nd century BC, and for unifying the island under Sinhala rule.
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SLA recruitment campaign in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 May 2002, 20:39 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army called on Muslim and Tamil youth in the eastern district of Batticaloa to join up from Thursday. The SLA campaigned for recruits in the villages of Eravur, Chenkalady, Vantharumoolai, Sithaandy, Mavadivembu and Kaluwankerny in vans fixed with loud hailers Wednesday urging youth to enrol in the military.
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Crowd confronts SLA for delaying LTTE arrival

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 April 2002, 05:30 GMT]
The arrival of the Liberation Tigers in the Sri Lanka army controlled part of the Mannar district under the terms of the cease-fire agreement signed by Colombo and the LTTE in February was delayed Tuesday over the list of names sent to the army by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). The large crowd comprising community leaders, traders, civil society activists etc., from Mannar who were waiting at the SLA's Uyilankulam entry point to welcome the LTTE from 8.30 in the morning got into a heated altercation with the military over the delay in letting the Tigers pass through. A section of the public then came to blows with soldiers who trying to video film the crowd and attempted to grab the SLA's camera.
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Vavuniya prepares welcome for LTTE members

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 March 2002, 15:36 GMT]
Members of the Liberation Tigers' political wing will arrive in Vavuniya on Friday to begin work in the northern town, in accordance with the cease-fire agreement signed by the Sri Lanka Government and the LTTE. The eight-member team will be welcomed by the public at Omanthai, civilian sources in Vavuniya said.
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US envoy's concern for children said hypocrisy

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 March 2002, 20:12 GMT]
"More than hundred and fifty innocent Tamil children under five are being held in Sri Lankan prisons under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Scores of little children were massacred when the Sri Lanka Air Force bombed the Nagar Kovil School in Jaffna. Thousands of Tamil children whose parents were murdered in cold blood by the SLA are destitute orphans in the northeast today. The US ambassador's humanitarian concern was blind to the plight of these Tamil children until this week.
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Police out of Koneswaram demands Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 March 2002, 22:11 GMT]
Mr.R.Sampanthan, Trincomalee district parliamentarian Tuesday urged the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Eastern region) to permanently remove the police barrack from the 'madam' (pilgrim's rest) of historic Koneswaram temple in the eastern port town.
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'I'll don the stripes if UNF peace fails' -Chandranehru

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 February 2002, 21:43 GMT]
"A river of blood will flow in this island if the United National Front government fails to make every effort to bring about peace. Why? Even I, Chandranehru, will wear the LTTE uniform and go to the battlefield. This is the last chance for Sri Lanka to solve the Tamil problem politically. The three communities of this country yearn for peace today.
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Army controls pose acid test for UNP

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2001, 16:50 GMT]
Thousands of farmers face ruin in the northern parts of Batticaloa because of Sri Lanka Army imposed restrictions on tractors, sources said. On 12 November the SLA banned farmers from taking their tractors to plough fields in the western hinterland of the eastern district. The ban was imposed on the eve of the ploughing period. More than 15, 000 acres couldn’t be tilled on time for sowing as a consequence. “Our problem is an acid test for the UNP government which says it will lift such unfair restrictions by the SLA which affect ordinary Tamils like us in the north and east. If the army comes up with its usual excuse that this is a security related matter, will the new government have the mettle and authority to determine the truth and let us carry on with our cultivation?” asked a senior member of the Agrarian Services Committee for Peruvelikandam, the body representing the interests of farmers in this region.
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