Sinhala nationalists' convoy to LTTE camp turned back

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 11:25 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police Tuesday peacefully turned back a large convoy of vehicles in which activists of Sihala Urumaya (SU), an ultra Sinhala nationalist party, were travelling towards Kurankupanchaan Kulam in Southern Trincomalee, vowing to enter the camp of the Liberation Tigers, which Colombo claims to be in territory under its control. More than a hundred Buddhist monks and about three hundred SU activists began the drive to the LTTE's camp from Kantalai around 1 p.m. Tuesday with the slogan "The arms are yours, the land is ours".
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$649m aid committed to Northeast

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 09:40 GMT]
"The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP, the World Food Program, the European Commission, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States have committed a total of US$ 649 million to the North East to date. The donor community stands ready to support reconstruction and recovery in the conflict-affected areas," said a joint donor press release issued from the offices of Worldbank in Colombo today.
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SLMM holds discussion on SU threat with SLA, Police

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 05:54 GMT]
A conference was held following a message to the SLMM by the Defense Ministry Secretary Mr. Austin Fernando that SLMM should take appropriate steps in consultation with army, police and civil administrative officials if the Sinhala nationalist party Sihala Urumaya (SU) continued its foot march towards Kurankupanchchan beyond Soorankal, sources said.


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Colombo urged to act on church attacks

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 October 2003, 20:25 GMT]
The National Peace Council, a Sri Lankan peace group called on Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's government Monday to investigate and prevent recent attacks on Christian churches. Sinhala nationalists and powerful sections of the Sri Lankan Buddhist clergy charge that Christian churches, particularly evangelical groups funded from the west, are engaged in an aggressive effort to convert Buddhists to Christianity by what they claim to be "unethical" and "unscrupulous" means.
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'Dire need for Northeast Children Secretariat'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 October 2003, 20:11 GMT]
North East Provincial Commissioner of Probation and Childcare Ms Ranjini Nadarajapillai Saturday made an urgent appeal that a Secretariat for Child Welfare should be established for the northeast province to cater the urgent needs of thousands of children who have become destitute due to the war and are being maintained in several children homes, sources in Trincomalee said.
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Salt threatens eight thousand acres in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 October 2003, 18:43 GMT]
Yields in more than eight thousand acres of rice fields in Kopay South in the peninsula are steadily declining due to salination of the lands from waters seeping from the saltpans of Chemmani, on the eastern outskirts of the Jaffna town, local farmers told TamilNet Saturday.
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SLMM political advisor meets Mannar LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 October 2003, 18:27 GMT]
The political advisor to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, Mr. Gejir Sebeasd Deniy, met officials of the Liberation Tigers in Mannar Friday for discussions about the ground situation in the district during the 17 months of cease-fire between Colombo and the LTTE. Head of the LTTE political division in Mannar Mr. C Amithaab, told Mr. Deniy that there weren't any problems with the Sri Lankan armed forces in the district only during the first five months of the cease-fire.
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SLA commander dismisses reports of new Trinco LTTE camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 October 2003, 18:11 GMT]
Maj. Gen. Sunil Tennekoon, commander of the Sri Lanka army’s 22 Division, in a meeting with journalists Wednesday night, dismissed reports in the Colombo press that the Liberation Tigers pose a very serious threat to the Trincomalee port by strategically ‘encircling’ it with several new camps, sources said.
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TNA briefs new US Ambassador in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 October 2003, 15:36 GMT]
A delegation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Thursday told the new US Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Mr. Jeff Lunstead, that the US government should have helped to take forward the peace process by lifting the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, TNA sources said.
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Kurankupanchan Martyrs’ tombs built in 1996 - Thilak

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 October 2003, 00:01 GMT]
Mr.S.Thilak, the Trincomalee district political head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Wednesday afternoon showed to the visiting Colombo-based journalists the tombs of two LTTE martyrs, Lt.Lingan and Second Lt. Ganesh, who were buried in the Kurankupanchan camp area in 1990, sources said.
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SLA said baulking shortest route to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 18:43 GMT]
The Consortium of Humanitarian Organisations in Mannar Wednesday called upon the Sri Lankan government and military to reopen the coastal road connecting the northwestern district with Jaffna. “The road has to be reopened as soon as possible to address the dire marketing problems faced by farmers in the district,” said Mr. Peter Sinclair, the President of the Consortium.
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Journalists allowed to visit Trinco LTTE camp

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 15:12 GMT]
For the first time since the controversy broke out over the location of the Kurankupanchan camp of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Trincomalee district, the LTTE Wednesday allowed a group of journalists from Colombo and Trincomalee to visit the camp, located 32 km west of Trincomalee town, sources said.
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IGP under heat to resign

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 October 2003, 14:28 GMT]
The Sihala Urumaya, a Sinhala nationalist party in Sri Lanka, has called for the resignation of Sri Lanka’s Inspector General of Police (IGP), T.E.Anandarajah, saying the IGP is “misusing his position of authority” and “supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,” and has warned it would conduct a protest campaign against the IGP, media sources in Colombo said.


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Stateless Tamils’ long struggle bears fruit

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 October 2003, 16:59 GMT]
A bill to grant citizenship to 168,141 stateless Tamils in Sri Lanka descended from people who settled in the hill districts of the island in the 19th century was passed Tuesday without opposition in Sri Lanka’s Parliament. Speaking on the bill, Mr. Arumugan Thondman MP, leader of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, the largest Tamil political party in the hill districts, said: “These people have contributed so much to this country but were denied all their rights and had to struggle for 55 years to achieve the rights they had prior to 1948. This is symbolic of the ethnic divide in this country.”
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NE observes death anniversary of LTTE leaders

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 18:55 GMT]
The sixteenth death anniversary of twelve LTTE cadres, including senior commanders Lt. Col. Pulendran and Lt. Col. Kumarappa, was held at Theeruvil in Valvettithurai in Jaffna district Sunday with the opening of the renovated memorial tomb, which was destroyed by the Sri Lanka Army when it captured the peninsula in 1996, sources said.
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Arrest over leaflet stops work in harbour

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 16:32 GMT]
Ship unloading at the Pt. Pedro Jetty in Jaffna stopped when workers walked out of the harbour in protest over the detention of two of their colleagues by the Sri Lanka army Sunday morning. Sri Lankan military in Pt. Pedro said the two had brought into the harbour leaflets to mark the sixteenth death anniversary of twelve Liberation Tigers, including two senior commanders, who committed suicide in SLA custody in Palaly, refusing to be flown to Colombo for interrogation and detention in October 1987.
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'Open discussion needed on LTTE's proposals' - Wickremesinghe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 15:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe said Sunday that LTTE's response to the Sri Lanka Government proposals on the Interim Administrative (IA) structure for the northeast, which is expected to be submitted by the end of this month, needs to be discussed openly, political sources in Colombo said.


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SLA expands camps in Valaichenai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 October 2003, 15:28 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army is expanding and strengthening its camps in Kumpurumoolai and Navalady in Valaichenai in the Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said. Kumpurumoolai is located 30 km north of Batticaloa town, and the Navalady junction 36 km north, on the Batticaloa-Colombo road.
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SLA intensifies checking in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 October 2003, 02:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) stepped up checking pedestrians and vehicles at several key roads and junctions in Batticaloa district inconveniencing civilians and causing delays to vehicular traffic, sources in Batticaloa said.


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TNA briefs Australian parliamentarians on peace process

[TamilNet, Friday, 03 October 2003, 13:25 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Friday told the visiting Australian parliamentary delegation that the establishment of an interim administration with adequate powers has become a sine qua non for rebuilding the war ravaged northeast province and to ensure the survival of the present peace environment, sources said. "There is no immediate opportunity to find a permanent political solution to the ethnic conflict under the current constitutional set up," the TNA's parliamentarians told the Australian delegation.
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