Fear of re-introduction of Police registration unfounded - Amaratunge

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 June 2003, 10:17 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Government is not contemplating re-introducing legislation requiring Tamils residing in Colombo to register the details of households with the Police. Tamil people therefore need not worry about such procedures coming into force again, said John Amaratunge, Minister of Interior.


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Trincomalee club to assist under privileged women

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 June 2003, 20:09 GMT]
"We have plans to create awareness among women about their fundamental rights under the Sri Lanka's constitution and their basic rights under the normal laws of the country and how to use them," said Ms Latha Thirkumaranathan in her inaugural address Saturday after being elected as the Charter President of the Trincomalee Inner Wheel Club (IWC).


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Tamils in Colombo fear return of mass arrests

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 June 2003, 18:36 GMT]
Three hundred and six persons were arrested in Colombo and its suburbs during the past twenty-four hours said Police in Sri Lanka’s capital Sunday. Reports in the Tamil press Sunday said that six hundred and fifty Tamils were arrested during a joint cordon and search operation by the army and Police in the city’s suburbs Saturday night. Meanwhile, a union for Police officers called on Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister and President to re-impose the draconian Emergency Regulations to facilitate their work in ensuring the capital’s security.
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Human skeletons recovered in Ariyalai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 June 2003, 11:10 GMT]
Human skeletons and other remains were recovered in Nedunkulam junction area in Ariyalai, Jaffna, by members of the Halo Trust group who are engaged in mine clearing operations along the Jaffna-Kandy (A9) road in Ariyalai, early last week sources said.
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'Armed challenge to imposed national territory inevitable'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 June 2003, 00:33 GMT]
"Sri Lanka's colonial rulers left military power solely in the hands of a single community within an artificially created national territory on this island, created without the consent of the Tamils who, nevertheless, were included in it. Therefore the majority community had to increasingly depend on its monopoly on military force to hold on to this artificial national territory it acquired from the British. Under the circumstance, a military challenge to this was inevitable among the Tamils," said Mr. V. T. Thamilmaran, senior lecturer in law in the University of Colombo, Saturday.
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Ex-EPDP member shot dead

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 June 2003, 10:50 GMT]
Nadesan Sutharsan (24) and ex-member of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) was shot dead by unknown gunmen at 11am Friday in Akkaraipattu, Batticaloa district, security sources said.
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SLMM releases report on SLN's sinking of LTTE vessel

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 June 2003, 10:28 GMT]
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in its report on the sea incident where LTTE's vessel MT Shoshin was sunk by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on 14 June, concluded, "Since neither Party informed the SLMM in due time about the incident...the possibility to prevent the escalation was missed," that SLMM "does not consider that SLN violated the CFA by intercepting the LTTE tanker," and that "LTTE violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10th Dec 1982 by not flying an appropriate flag and official, visible identification."
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Police-SLA arrest thirteen Tamils in Wellawatte

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 June 2003, 19:39 GMT]
Police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) conducted cordon and search operation in Wellawatte, a predominantly Tamil suburb in Colombo Friday and arrested thirteen Tamil youths, security sources said. This joint operation took place as part of the new security measures now being carried out in the capital of the country since the gunning down of a police intelligence unit head in Dehiwala, police said.


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Final phase talks on SLFP-JVP alliance begin

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 June 2003, 16:31 GMT]
Final phase talks between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) began Friday evening around six at the Presidential Secretariat, political sources in Colombo said.


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‘Together against Torture’ Seminar in Trinco

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 June 2003, 00:10 GMT]
Legislation against torture in Sri Lanka is kept in law libraries as an ornament and is not implemented to prevent torture, said Human Rights lawyer, Mr. K. Sivapalan, addressing a seminar on ‘Together against Torture,’ held Thursday in Trincomalee to commemorate the United Nations (UN) International Day.
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Security beefed up in Colombo - Peiris

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 June 2003, 17:52 GMT]
The United National Front government of Sri Lanka has streamlined its security network in the country to curb the increase of crime, and has deployed more troops and police personnel with vehicles and motorbikes to conduct search operations in Colombo, said the Sri Lankan cabinet spokesman and Minister, Mr. G.L.Peiris, at a press briefing Thursday.
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Jaffna’s crippled fisheries industry strapped for cash

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 June 2003, 02:18 GMT]
Two decades ago the Jaffna district was Sri Lanka’s main fisheries producer, accounting for 37 percent of the island’s total catch. Today Jaffna’s ‘fisheries belt’ lies inside the Sri Lanka army’s largest high security zone in the northeast, its once prosperous coastal villages virtually razed to the ground.
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JVP presses with campaign against peace talks

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 June 2003, 18:01 GMT]
The Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) held another massive demonstration and rally Wednesday near downtown Colombo denouncing peace talks between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers. More than five thousand party activists and members marched through a busy part of the city shouting slogans against the LTTE and Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mr. Minister Ranil Wicremesinghe’s government.
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Security tightened in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 June 2003, 10:48 GMT]
Inpector General of Police, T.E.Anandarajah, told the press in Colombo Wednesday that additional security measures are being instituted in Colombo following the killings of intelligence officers.


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Intelligence officer shot dead in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 June 2003, 11:07 GMT]
Head of the Colombo-Dehiwela Intelligence Unit of the Anti-Terrorism Unit Sunil Thabrew was shot dead Monday morning at 11am at the Dehiwela police barracks by an unidentified gunman, security sources in Colombo said.
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SLFP holds fourteenth party convention

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 June 2003, 01:18 GMT]
"I ordered the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) to destroy the LTTE ship that carried weapons last Saturday to safeguard the country and its people," declared President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge addressing the fourteenth national convention of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main constituent of the opposition People's Alliance (PA) Saturday evening at Nittambuwa in western province, political sources in Colombo said.
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Negotiating Tamil sovereignty

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 June 2003, 00:52 GMT]
“Tamils have only had very compelling political and moral reasons for not acceding their sovereignty to the Sri Lankan state since Britain gave independence to this island. Therefore no road map to peace in Sri Lanka should be allowed to compromise the Tamil people’s sovereign and inalienable right to decide their political status in the land of their forebears," said Mr. Selvam Adaikalanathan, Tamil National Alliance MP for Vanni, reacting Friday to suggestions that the Liberation Tigers should agree to a peace road map in return for workable interim administration for the northeast.
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Peace ceremony shifted to Vavuniya due to protests

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 June 2003, 17:05 GMT]
A ceremony to honour personalities who have dedicated themselves to promote peace and harmony in the country and scheduled to be held in Jaffna University Kailasapathy Auditorium Saturday morning has been shifted to Vavuniya due to protests by civil groups, sources said.


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Volunteers teachers made permanent assume duties in NE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 June 2003, 18:46 GMT]
Ninety percent of the nine hundred and nine Tamil medium volunteers made permanent Thursday assumed duties in their respective Tamil medium schools in the northeast, provincial education ministry officials said.


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Subathiran's final rites to be held in Colombo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 June 2003, 11:27 GMT]
The body of Jaffna leader of Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF- Varathar faction) Thambirajah Subathiran (alias Robert) who was shot dead in Jaffna by a sniper Saturday was taken to Colombo from Palaly airport Monday morning amid tight security, local reports said.
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