LTTE member killed in Batticaloa ambush

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2005, 12:07 GMT]
A member of the Liberation Tigers was killed in an ambush near Kirumichchai, 48 kilometres north of Batticaloa, Saturday morning around 10. "He was killed in an ambush by the Sri Lanka army (SLA) in an area that is under our control. It about three kilometres from the SLA's Cadjuwatte camp", said an LTTE official in Batticaloa. "A Sri Lanka army helmet was found at the scene of the ambush," he said.
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Troops assault journalist, scores injured in Jaffna clashes

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 March 2005, 12:09 GMT]
Sri Lanka army troops Friday severely assaulted a journalist working for the state run Lake House Newspapers as restive crowds in the northern town set fire to six military points and smashed up President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) office. One person was injured when army opened fire on a crowd at Kottadi. Scores of students and civilians were asaulted by SLA troops and riot Police in several parts of the town. Four persons injured in army and Police assault and firing were admitted to Jaffna hospital Friday afternoon.
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Students protest over death, tension in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 March 2005, 06:44 GMT]
Tension prevailed in Jaffna town after a school girl was knocked down dead by a speeding Sri Lanka army vehicle Friday morning. Hundreds of students and teachers from Vembady Girls' Scool blocked traffic in protest following the accident. A group of civilians in the neighbourhood who joined the students' protest attempted to set fire to a Sri Lanka Air Force vehicle. Shops closed as SLA deployed hundreds of additional troops in the tense town around noon Friday. Around 1.45 p.m. a group of protestors set fire to a Sri Lanka army sentry at Catapult Junction in Kandar Madam, near Jaffna University.
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Police stop JVP attempt to build illegal settlement

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 March 2005, 16:13 GMT]
Police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Thursday evening stopped the construction of illegal Sinhala settlement and removed building materials brought to the esplanade of the Trincomalee Urban Council by a group of JVP cadres Wednesday night, Police said.
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Gunman who shot Kuveni worked for SLA intelligence – paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 March 2005, 05:00 GMT]
The gunman who allegedly shot and grievously wounded head of Liberation Tigers’ political division for Batticaloa-Amparai (women), Ms. Kuveni and two female LTTE political activists, was a former Sri Lanka military intelligence operative, the Tamil daily Virakesari said Thursday quoting Sri Lanka army Headquarters sources. The man, now in Police custody, has been identified as Mr. Johnson Jeyakanthan (also known as ‘Pratheepan’) who had worked as an informant for Sri Lanka military intelligence, the paper quoted SLA Headquarters sources as saying.


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Sinhala nationalists vow to oppose west, 'neo colonialism'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2005, 16:59 GMT]
Sinhala nationalists Wednesday declared 2 March as national ‘Anti-neo-colonialism Day’ at a rally to mark to commemorate Ven. Wariyapola Sumangala, the Buddhist monk who pulled down the Union Jack and hoisted the Sinhala lion flag 190 years ago. A widely publicized rally to mark the day was organized in Colombo by Patriotic National Movement (PNM), an alliance of Sinhala nationalists formed and backed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s main coalition ally, Janatha Vimukthi Permamuna (JVP).
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Thousands march in Jaffna, urge talks, condemn attacks on LTTE activists

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2005, 12:39 GMT]
More than twenty thousand people marched in Jaffna Wednesday urging the international community to persuade the Sri Lankan government to restart the long stalled peace talks with the Liberation Tigers. The march condemned the killing and shooting of LTTE political leaders and called on Colombo to set up a joint mechanism with the Tigers for the equitable distribution of Tsunami aid to the northeast. Jaffna peninsula was shut down until the march, which wound through the northern town from morning 10.45, concluded in the afternoon.
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Jaffna cleans shoreline of damaged corals

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2005, 05:09 GMT]
Fisheries societies in Vadamaradchchi division, with funding assistance from the non-governmental organization Sewa Lanka, have initiated a project to remove debris from damage coral reefs found scattered in coastal areas due to tsunami disaster to allow normalization of fishing activities, sources said.
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SLA blocks deepening Northern jetties

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 March 2005, 16:33 GMT]
Discussions held Tuesday between the officials of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and representatives of Vadamaradchchi fisheries societies ended without resolving the dispute over deepening of about twenty one fisheries jetties covered with tsunami debris along the northern coast of Jaffna district. SLA demanded that work can only be carried out under SLA procedures and supervision citing security reasons. The fisheries representatives opposed SLA's conditions, sources said.
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Boat building yard opened in Vadamaradchchi east

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 March 2005, 11:26 GMT]
Funded by the Norwegian and Malaysian branches of Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and in collaboration with the Multi Marine Services (MMS) organization, the TRO Monday opened a boat-building yard in Nelliyan, Vadamaradchchi east division in the Jaffna district, sources said.


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Prince Charles arrives in Sri Lanka, visits Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 February 2005, 05:39 GMT]
Britain's Prince Charles arrived in Colombo on Monday morning on a six-hour brief visit amidst tight security. Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, Power and Energy Minister Susil Premajayanth and Deputy Foreign Minister Prof. Viswa Warnapala received the Prince at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) amidst tight security. From the international airport, Charles flew to the Eastern Batticaloa district in a special military helicopter and visited Navalady and Thiruchendoor, two coastal suburbs of Batticaloa town, which were completely devastated by the Tsunami.
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SLA prevents deepening tsunami affected jetties in north

[TamilNet, Sunday, 27 February 2005, 15:52 GMT]
A conference has been summoned for Tuesday to settle the dispute between the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Vadamaradchchi fisheries societies over the deepening about twenty-one fisheries jetties affected from Thondamannaru in the Vadamaradchchi north to Munai point in Point Pedro coast affected by tsunami. Monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Jaffna district and the Government Agent have been invited for the conference, fisheries sources said.
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Indian envoy visits Jaffna, discusses developing Pt.Pedro hospital

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 February 2005, 14:39 GMT]
A delegation led by Ms Nirupama Rao, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Saturday arrived in Palaly military air base Jaffna by a special aircraft and held discussions at the Point Pedro base hospital regarding its development with the funds allocated by the Government of India, health ministry sources said.
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Kumaratunga says no paramilitaries with Sri Lanka army

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 February 2005, 07:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga told Norwegian special peace envoy Mr. Eric Solheim that there aren’t any paramilitaries working with the Sri Lankan armed forces, according to a press release by the Presidential Secretariat Friday. The Liberation Tigers say that Colombo had committed to disarm paramilitaries working with the Sri Lankan armed forces in the island’s northeast under the terms of the cease fire agreement (CFA) it signed with them three years ago. The statement said that Mr. Solheim conveyed to Ms Kumaratunge LTTE’s concern regarding the implementation of Article 1.8 of the CFA in relation to disarming of paramilitary groups when he met her Thursday in Colombo.
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Two Tamil ministers of Kumaratunga govt. submit resignations

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 February 2005, 15:07 GMT]
A minister and a deputy minister of President Kumaratunga's coalition government submitted their resignations Thursday. The ministers, Mr. Muthu Sivalingam MP and Mr. M. S Sellasamy belong to the Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC), a key coalition partner of President Kumaratunga's government which represents workers in Sri Lanka's large plantation sector.
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Kumaratunga ally threatens to quit if talks resume

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 February 2005, 06:48 GMT]
The Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the main coalition partner of President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government Thursday threatened to pull out of the ruling alliance if the long stalled talks between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers on setting up an interim administration to address the immediate humanitarian needs of the war torn Northeast of Sri Lanka are resumed. In a hard hitting statement issued Thursday, JVP slammed President Kumaratunga’s government for neither consulting nor informing them about the announcement Wednesday that Colombo is ready to restart talks with the Tigers on the basis of a proposal for establishing an interim administration.


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SC quashes death sentence, Tamil youth released after 15 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 February 2005, 16:57 GMT]
Mr.Shanmugam Ragupathi, a Tamil youth of Jaffna was released Monday after fifteen years in Welikada jail when the Supreme Court quashed the death sentence imposed on him by the Colombo High Court in a case in which he was indicted by the Attorney General for causing deaths of several soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in an attack on the Karainagar army base in the year 1990, legal sources said.
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SLA troopers shot in Kilali no go zone

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 February 2005, 15:26 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) trooper was reported killed and another was injured when the Liberation Tigers fired on them in the no man's zone when the SLA soldiers had advanced to within 40 meters of the LTTE Forward Defence line in the lagoon between the SLA held Kilali, Jaffna and the LTTE controlled mainland around 5 p.m. Wednesday. LTTE women cadres in the forward defence line opened fire when they spotted SLA soldiers taking aim at them, sources in Kilinochchi said. A similar incident took place at the same location in February 2003.
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Chemmani medical reports with Attorney General

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 February 2005, 03:10 GMT]
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Sri Lanka Police has informed the Colombo Chief Magistrate Ms. Sarojini Kusala Jayawardene that forensic reports about the twenty-one human skeletons exhumed from Chemmani graveyard in Jaffna with the Attorney General, legal sources said.
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German minister gifts boats, engines, nets

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 February 2005, 19:39 GMT]
German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Ms. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, visited Manalkaadu, a Tsunami devastated fishing village on Jaffna's southeastern coast Tuesday. She gave fifteen boats and out board motors to fishermen who lost their homes and all belongings. Fishermen refused to receive the boats and equipment from the German Minister in the presence of Sri Lanka army officers from the Manalkaadu garrison.
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