Mannar rape and torture suspects score one

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 21:11 GMT]
The Mannar judge M.H.M Ajmeer instructed the Superintendent of the Anuradhapura prison that the 14 Police and Sri Lanka Navy personnel accused in the rape and torture of two women in Mannar on 19 March need not be produced in court Wednesday following an interim order by the Court of Appeal, legal sources said Tuesday.
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ICRC transfers bodies of LTTE killed by STF

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 June 2001, 11:35 GMT]
The bodies of 11 Liberation Tigers who were killed Monday in an attack by Special Task Force commandos in Kanjikudichcha Aaru, 84 kilometres south of Batticaloa, were handed over to the ICRC Tuesday Mr.Harasha Gunawardene, the press officer of the ICRC in Colombo told Tamilnet. All the bodies were transferred to the LTTE today, he said. He added that the body of a Tiger trooper was handed over to the LTTE Monday.
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ICRC dissemination for Batticaloa LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 June 2001, 18:26 GMT]
The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) conducted a dissemination program for the members of the Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa district on Saturday. "About 70 male and female members participated in the session", said an ICRC spokesman.
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MSR patrol wounds woman

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 June 2001, 12:49 GMT]
A woman was injured when Sri Lanka Army soldiers on a route-clearing operation from Vaakaneri camp, about 37 kilometres north of Batticaloa town on the Colombo highway, fired at random on either side of the road. The incident occured at Aalankulam, around 8 a.m. Sunday morning. Aalankulam is about 2 km. north of Vaakaneri. The SLA camp at Vaakeneri is one of the key points on the sole Main Supply Route linking the 23 division headquarters with two of its brigades (23-2 and 23-3) which hold the coast of the Batticaloa district from Valaichenai to Batticaloa town.
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Tortured Jaffna youth petitions SC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 31 May 2001, 08:44 GMT]
The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on Wednesday granted leave to proceed on a fundamental rights petition filed by a Jaffna youth who is being held in the Boosa prison, south of Colombo. The youth, Selvarajah Thamilchelvan of Pattarakalli koviladi, Thavadi South, Kokuvil, Jaffna states in his petition that he was hung upside down and severely tortured while in the custody of the Terrorism Investigation Division of the Police. Thamilchelvan said that TID officers repeatedly burnt his hands with cigarettes and covered his head with a plastic bag soaked in petrol while he was beaten with wires and poles- common method of torture by Sri Lankan security forces. The medico-legal report on Thamilchelvan states there are seven scars on his body, two of which are 14 cm 16 cm long and two 10 cm long.
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Lifting censorship said ill timed for SLA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 May 2001, 13:31 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government Wednesday lifted the draconian censorship on reporting the war against the Liberation Tigers. The reason for the move is not clear, military sources in Colombo said. The censorship, imposed in May 1998, banned, among other things, reporting on military operations planned by the Sri Lanka army and on purchases of military hardware. However, the censorship generally inhibited the Sri Lankan press from candidly reporting about the Sri Lanka army and its military activities in the north and east of the island.
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Sri Lanka's decision seriously threatens peace talks: LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 May 2001, 09:13 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Monday criticised the Sri Lankan government's refusal Saturday to lift the proscription of their organisation and said this had "seriously jeopardised" the prospects for peace talks. Expressing regret and dismay over Sri Lanka's decision in a statement issued from its Vanni headquarters, the LTTE leadership called upon the government to reconsider its position for the sake of peace and ethnic reconciliation. "If the Government adopts a hard-line position and refuses to review its decision on proscription, then it should bear full and total responsibility for the collapse of the peace efforts and the serious consequences that might arise from its decision," the Tigers warned.
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'Onward with the war' say Sinhala nationalists

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2001, 16:45 GMT]
"The need of the hour is not peace negotiations but to prosecute the war correctly. We should not think about how to negotiate peace but only about conducting the war victoriously. Sri Lanka is the homeland of the Sinhala people. No part of it can be the homeland of a minority. Autonomy and self-determination should not be granted or recognised", resolved a conference of Buddhist monks, leading Sinhala Buddhist businessmen, intellectuals and retired senior officers of the Sri Lankan security forces in Colombo Saturday. The conference was organised, according to a spokesman, to "consider the implications of the forthcoming peace talks and the constitutional proposals on the country". Meanwhile, Colombo stated categorically Saturday that it will not lift the proscription of the Liberation Tigers as a pre-requisite for starting talks.
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TULF urges Colombo to lift proscription of LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 24 May 2001, 07:21 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front said Thursday it would strongly urge the Sri Lankan Government not to delay the lifting of the proscription on the Liberation Tigers. The Senior Vice President of the TULF M. V.Ananadasangaree and the Secretary General Mr. R. Sampanthan issued a statement following a politburo meeting of the party in Colombo Wednesday. The party said that the Sri Lankan government should not “retard the commencement of talks” with the Liberation Tigers by “delaying a positive decision in regard to the termination of the proscription of the LTTE”.
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Trincomalee ambush toll rises

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 May 2001, 05:50 GMT]
Seventeen Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) sailors were killed and twenty-eight wounded in a claymore mine blast Wednesday morning around 9.45 a.m. near Thambalagamam on the Trincomalee-Habarana road. The SLN personnel were travelling in a convoy when a bus carrying them was hit by the blast, sources said.
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New ICRC technology helps Jaffna amputees

[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 May 2001, 05:33 GMT]
Mr. Serge Marme, Head of ICRC Sub-delegation in Jaffna addressing a press conference in Jaffna about the organisation's activities in the peninsula Saturday afternoon said
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Ban "major hurdle" to talks - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 May 2001, 09:24 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers said in a statement from Friday that Sri Lanka's ban on their organisation "has become the major hurdle for the initiation of peace talks" out of three factors as pre-requisite necessary steps, the other two being "removing the economic blockade in the Tamil homeland [and] declaring of an indefinite cease-fire". Giving details of the discussions between the Norwegian delegation and members of the LTTE's Central committee, the movement said in a statement from the Vanni Secreterait that "The international community should understand that we cannot participate in peace talks as an illegal, criminal entity with a distorted false label as 'terrorists'."
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Douglas berates Jaffna press

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 May 2001, 13:05 GMT]
“I do not trust the press in Jaffna”, said Mr. Douglas Devananda, MP, Minister for Development Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of the North and Tamil Affairs (North and East), addressing a press conference Thursday afternoon at his office on Stanley Road in the northern town. The road, in the busy heart of Jaffna town, was blocked off to the public from Thursday morning 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the afternoon by Sri Lanka army soldiers, Policemen and armed cadres of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP). The press briefing was called after the conclusion of the Jaffna electorate development meeting, which was boycotted by five Jaffna MPs who are protesting that it is not safe for them to be present in Mr. Devananda’s office cum camp on Stanley Road.
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Law of War workshop for SLN

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 May 2001, 11:34 GMT]
A three-day workshop to the Sri Lanka Navy personnel on the International Humanitarian Law (Law of War) organized by the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) was inaugurated at the Naval Base in Trincomalee Thursday morning. “Sri Lanka Navy Officers attached to the Naval and Maritime Academy are attending the workshop which is about the application of the Law of War to warfare at sea” said Mr. M. Pushparajan, Dissemination officer of the ICRC's Sub Delegation in Trincomalee.
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'ER and PTA can only create a closed society'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 May 2001, 23:00 GMT]
"There is a great divide between the Sinhala and Tamil media today. Both are totally alienated from each other. The government is confused about public information and official information. The state run media give only official information.
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TULF's bona fides questioned

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 May 2001, 17:13 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) Saturday called upon the Government and the main opposition party, the United National Party (UNP), to take every possible step to facilitate the commencement of a constructive dialogue that would end the conflict "within the framework upon the basis of which the Norwegian initiative has commenced". Opposition sources, however, charged that the TULF has issued the statement "in cahoots with the government" to scuttle the UNP's no confidence motion. "We wonder why the TULF had to rush at this point to assert that 'the present is an opportune moment' to resolve the conflict?" they questioned.
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Kadirgamar's move said linked to no confidence motion

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2001, 19:34 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan government announced that it had reached an agreement with the Liberation Tigers not because of a genuine commitment to peace but to deftly pre-empt the support of minority parties for the opposition's impending no confidence motion against the government", a spokesperson for the ten party Tamil alliance told TamilNet in Colombo Friday evening. "The government is alarmed now that it might lose the support of at least a section of its main coalition partner, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress over the Mawanella pogrom. This is has created a serious crisis for the People's Alliance. Why should the Sri Lankan government, which consistently rejected the LTTE's ceasefire and refused to even partially lift the embargo on the Vanni despite facing greater military defeats than Agni Khiela I last year, jump the gun at this juncture to falsely declare that it had reached an understanding with the Tigers to begin peace talks?" the Tamil politician in Colombo asked.
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SLMC slates government for Mawanella pogrom

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 17:26 GMT]
Mr. Rauff Hakeem, the co-leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the ruling People's Alliance's main coalition partner, Thursday slammed the government for not taking prompt action to stop the mass violence by Sinhala mobs against the Muslims of Mawanella. He accused the government of dragging its feet in taking action against the perpetrators of the anti-Muslim violence. He charged that transferring Policemen who were in Mawanella during the pogrom against the Muslims of the town was merely a temporary cosmetic measure.
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Ratwatte heaps scorn on LTTE's ceasefire-again

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 11:51 GMT]
"The LTTE's ceasefire was a myth. The troops involved in the Agni Khiela operation have been successfully extending their area of control", said Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister for Defence, Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte, speaking on the extension of the Emergency Thursday. Two elite Divisions of the Sri Lanka army comprising more than ten thousand soldiers took part in Operation Agni Khiela I barely two hours after the unilateral ceasefire declared by the Liberation Tigers on 24 December 2000 expired last month. The Tigers routed the offensive in four days of fighting. Gen. Ratwatte lambasted further the Tigers and their unilateral ceasefire in his speech.
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Colombo bans public processions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 07:52 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government banned all public processions for a week under the Emergency Regulations Thursday. An official statement said that the ban commenced midnight of 9 May. The ban was promulgated in the Emergency Regulation No. 1 of 2001 (public precessions), according to the statement.
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