Sampanthan, Sangaree meet Indian HC

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2001, 11:39 GMT]
Senior Tamil National Alliance MPs Mr. R. Sampanthan and Mr. V. Anandasangaree Wednesday appealed to India to impress upon the new Sri Lankan government to lift the ban on the Liberation Tigers. “The ban on the Liberation Tigers in Sri Lanka should be revoked first enabling them to participate in peace talks as the sole representative of Tamils and such talks should be held only with the LTTE with the international third party mediation”, a two MPs told the Indian High Commissioner Mr. Gopalkrishna Gandhi Wednesday morning during a discussion held in Colombo. “The TNAs manifesto been endorsed overwhelmingly by the Tamils of the northeast province at the general election held last week. Hence the new Sri Lankan government should fulfil the demands defined in our manifesto”, the MPs told the envoy. The Indian High Commissioner said he would convey the TNA’s position to his government.
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President gives in, UNP readies cabinet

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 December 2001, 16:20 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s new cabinet will be sworn in Wednesday, United National Party sources said. The cabinet will have 20-22 ministers. The President agreed Tuesday to let the UNP have the Defence and Finance portfolios in the new government. “Considerable pressure and sober counsel were necessary to make the President come to terms with the reality. However, she may keep the controversial Presidential Security Division (PSD) directly under her control”, said a UNP spokesman. Meanwhile, the commanders of the armed forces met the new Prime Minister this morning at his office in Colombo.
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SC orders compensation to torture victims

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2001, 19:41 GMT]
The Supreme Court Monday directed the State to pay 500,000 rupees as compensation to a Vavuniya Tamil youth, stating that his fundamental rights (FR) had been violated by the security forces when he being detained at Vavuniya army camp.
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Sampanthan tells new PM to fulfil TNA demands

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2001, 22:04 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Sunday told the new Prime Minister Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe that it would stick to its demands defined in its election manifesto in evolving a just and durable solution to the Tamil national question.
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Defence portfolio to end war eludes UNP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 December 2001, 04:44 GMT]
The state run Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, quoting a communique from the Presidential Secretariat, Sunday denied a report that the leader of the United National Party, Mr. Ranil Wickrmesinghe, who is to be sworn in as Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister this afternoon, would be appointed the Minister of Defense. The UNP cannot satisfactorily fulfill its pledge to end the war unless it has the Ministry of Defence, particularly because the President is the Commander of the Sri Lankan armed forces, party sources in Colombo said. The Ministry of Finance, however, has been offered to the UNP, according to them. The Tamil National Alliance says that it will give the UNP six months to bring about a cessation of hostilities and lift the embargo on the Vanni. The UNP, however, should have the Ministry of Defence if it were to meet these demands without hindrance, analysts say.
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US, EU endorse Sri Lanka polls as 'free and fair'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 December 2001, 12:00 GMT]
The United States Friday condemned the violence during the Sri Lankan elections Wednesday, and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. The State Department said however, the result of the polls, in which the main opposition United National Party swept the former ruling People's Alliance from power, was "basically free and fair."
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JVP shows massive increase

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 December 2001, 14:10 GMT]
The final results of the elections to Sri Lanka's 12th Parliament showed an upswing in popularity not only for the United National Party but also most remarkably in favour of the radical Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The JVP's popularity has shot up by 296579 votes in the course of a year, mostly at the expense of the People's Alliance. Both the JVP and the PA appealed largely to Sinhala Buddhists during the elections, by persistently attempting to stoke nationalist sentiments among them.
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UNP, SLMC coalition faces slim majority

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 December 2001, 11:03 GMT]
The United National Party won 89 seats islandwide, except the electoral district of Kandy, according to the final results released Friday afternoon in Colombo. The PA got 62, the JVP 12, the Tamil National Alliance 14, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress 5, the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) 2 and the People's Liberation Organisation 1.
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Two EPDP in Jaffna, one PLOTE in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2001, 18:20 GMT]
The TNA got 102324 votes in Jaffna, 86284 in Batticaloa and 41959 in the Vanni electoral district, election officials said Thursday. It got more than forty four thousand votes in the Ampara (Digamadulla) district, according to votes counted so far. Only two EPDP MPs were elected in Jaffna with 57208 votes. The EPDP, a close ally of President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s regime, was routed in all other districts of the north and east. Mr. Dharmalingam Sitharthan, the leader of the PLOTE, which came third in the Vanni with 9614 votes, was elected the sole MP from the group. The PLOTE too demands the lifting of Colombo’s ban on the Tigers and starting peace talks with them. The TNA lost the fourth seat in the Vanni by about 1200 votes, a spokesman for the Alliance said.
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Results of Jaffna electorates

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2001, 10:21 GMT]
The TNA got more than hundred thousand votes in the eleven electorates of the Jaffna electoral district. The southern sector of the electorate of Chavakachcheri is under the control of the Liberation Tigers. Kilinochchi, an administrative district in north which is an electorate of Jaffna, is under the total control of the Liberation Tigers. Only a few persons displaced from Kilinochchi by the war since 1996 were eligible to vote. The EPDP scored highest in the Kayts electorate, which comprises all the islands under its military influence. The ballots of Jaffna voters displaced in Puttalam and Colombo are yet to be counted.
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Sinhala populism said driving PA, UNP agendas

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 December 2001, 16:53 GMT]
The persistent propaganda by President Chandrika Kumaratunga and senior ministers of her People's Alliance government that the opposition United National Party is conspiring with Liberation Tigers to undermine the Sinhala nation and the opposition's efforts to deny the charge are inexorably transforming the question of ending the war into a taboo, a spokesman for the Tamil National Alliance said Tuesday.
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NSSP leader wounded in attack

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 November 2001, 16:05 GMT]
Unidentified persons Friday morning attacked Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratna, the leader of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), and his supporters at Wellampitiya in Colombo town when they were engaged in electioneering. Dr.Karunaratna was admitted to the Colombo National Hospital, police sources said.
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General shut in NE against EPDP atrocity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 November 2001, 08:32 GMT]
Schools, shops, government offices and banks were closed in the districts of Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna in response to a call by the Tamil National Alliance for a general shut down in the north and east to protest against the Eelam People's Democratic Party, a major coalition partner of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's regime, for killing two civilians and attacking and grievously wounding four TNA candidates in Kayts, an island off the northern peninsula.
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Buddhist monks condemn autonomy for Tamils

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 November 2001, 16:41 GMT]
Hundreds of Buddhist monks protested in Colombo Monday against granting an interim administrative council to run the northern and eastern parts of the island. The Sri Lankan government alleges that there is an insidious conspiracy by the United National party against the Sinhala people to hand over the northeastern province to the Liberation Tigers. President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Sinhala nationalists say that granting the LTTE the interim administration is treason. The protest was organised by the National Movement for the Defence of the Unitary State.
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Exiled Marxist leader addresses massive rally

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 19:27 GMT]
Mr. Somawansa Amarasingha, the leader Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna, who returned from a 12-year exile from the United Kingdom yesterday, addressed a massive public rally Friday evening in Kalutara, a large town south of Colombo. Mr. Amarasingha is the only surviving member of the JVP's politburo that was formed in 1969. In 1971 and 1988, Mr.Amarasingha, along with his comrades Rohana Wijeweera and Upatissa Gamanayaka, led two bloody armed insurrections to capture state power and to establish a communist regime in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka army crushed both rebellions, killing thousands of Sinhala youth.
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Jayakili Habeas Corpus to be heard in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 19:26 GMT]
The inquiry into the Salli habeas Corpus application was fixed this week for 15th January 2002 by the Eastern High Court in Trincomalee after the Court of Appeal withdrew (vacated) the stay order issued on the application by the Officer-in-Charge of the Navy detachment at Nilaveli, the first respondent, to the Colombo High Court that his case be transferred out of the eastern port town as his life was at risk there. In this Habeas Corpus application Ms Jayakili Pushparatha said that her husband Jeyakili of Salli disappeared in February last year after he was arrested by the Sri Lanka Navy in Nilaveli, 13 kilometres north of Trincomalee town.
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Court dismisses EPDP petitions against TULF

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 18:16 GMT]
The Court of Appeal Friday dismissed two petitions filed by the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) seeking to order the Returning Officer to reject the nomination list of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) contesting the Colombo district.
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Negotiations to end war said treason

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 17:35 GMT]
The United National Party Friday vehemently rejected Sri Lankan government's assertions that it is involved in an insidious conspiracy with the Liberation Tigers against the Sinhala people. State run print and electronic media gave wide publicity since Thursday to a telephone conversation allegedly between ex- UNP Parliamentarian Dr.Jayalath Jayawardena and an agent of the LTTE.
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Investors sense opposition win - FT

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 November 2001, 04:55 GMT]
(News Feature) Anticipation of an opposition victory in Sri Lanka’s Parliamentary polls next month is driving the present rally on the country’s tiny market despite the decline across Asia, with possibilities of peace efforts and a more market-friendly government drawing investors, Britain’s Financial Times reported Thursday. The respected financial daily said that while stocks on the Colombo exchange are looking over-valued, the market could keep rising if good news on the political front continues.
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Self-exiled JVP leader arrives Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 November 2001, 15:34 GMT]
Mr.Somawanse Amarasinghe, the self-exiled sole surviving member of the 1980s politburo of the Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) arrived Colombo Thursday morning by a Sri Lankan Airlines flight from United Kingdom after a 12 year-long absence Mr.Amarasinghe is billed to address an election rally in support of the JVP at Kalutara in western province Friday, party sources said.
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