Administrative devices said undermining Tamil areas

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 February 2001, 07:18 GMT]
Eechchilampattu, an agricultural region in the southern interior of the Trincomalee district, remains acutely underdeveloped because discriminatory administrative policies aimed at keeping it under the Seruvila local government body, local civil society activists said. Mr.S.Gunanayagam, a Justice of Peace and former chairman of the Kaddaiparichchan Village Council told TamilNet that the interior roads of the region are dilapidated or unusable and that there has been no local development work here for almost a decade because the Sinhala dominated Seruvila Pradeshiya Sabha refuses to allocate any funds for Eechchilampattu. "This is a general strategy adopted by Sinhala bureaucrats to undermine several isolated Tamil administrative units in the northern and eastern parts of the island", Mr. Gunanayagam said.
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British ban will scuttle peace process - LTTE

[TamilNet, Monday, 12 February 2001, 09:19 GMT]
The proscription of the Liberation Tigers by Britain would “seriously undermine” the ongoing Norwegian peace initiative, the LTTE’s chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham said this week in an interview to the Tamil Guardian newspaper. “A serious indictment of one party by Britain as ‘terrorists’ at this stage would be considered as a partisan intervention in Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and therefore destroy trust in the Norwegian peace initiative,” Balasingham told the London based weekly.
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Massive anti-government protest in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 February 2001, 22:21 GMT]
(Photos) More than one-hundred thousand supporters of Sri Lanka's main opposition United National Party (UNP) poured onto the roads of Colombo as a five-day long protest rally which began in the hill town of Kandy arrived in the capital Friday. The rally was organised by the UNP to denounce government's economic policy, opposition activists said. Protesters carried coffins and shouted slogans mourning the death of the rupee currency, which was floated last month. The opposition has threatened a general strike and demanding the government step down.
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Jaffna, Batticaloa students lobby against UK ban

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 February 2001, 15:23 GMT]
Jaffna university students have organised a signature-campaign to urge the British Government not to proscribe the Liberation Tigers under its new anti-terrorism legislature, said student sources. The campaign, which began on Friday, is a part of 'Pongu Thamil' (Tamil Upsurge), the sources said.
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Peace hopes dim as Sri Lanka hardens stance

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 February 2001, 22:43 GMT]
(News Feature) Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunge hardened her stance on the island's ethnic conflict Sunday, dismissing the Liberation Tigers' extended unilateral ceasefire as "meaningless" and insisting the war would only be stopped when negotiations "progressed satisfactorily," dashing hopes amongst Tamil political parties of possible peace talks between the government and the LTTE.
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Three arrested in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 February 2001, 16:20 GMT]
Three youth who went to purchase tickets to travel to Colombo at the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority for the North office in Jaffna town were arrested and detained by the Sri Lanka army, the Human Rights Commission said Friday. The youth, who were taken into custody on Wednesday, are being held at the 51-2 brigade headquarters, the HR office said. The three are from the village of Atchelu, north of Jaffna town.
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SLA tenders qualified apology as officer retires

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 January 2001, 21:30 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army in Batticaloa town Wednesday tendered a qualified public apology for massacring hundreds innocent civilians of this eastern district in the past in a handbill and over loud hailers. The SLA handbill, among other things, states "on some occasions people had to be murdered on the orders of certain commanders".
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Grenade attack on Oxfam office

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 January 2001, 06:52 GMT]
Two grenades were thrown at a British aid agency office, Oxfam, at Narahenpita in Colombo in the early hours of Wednesday. Though there were no casualties, two vehicles parked at the office were damaged in the blast, police said.
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Heads shaved to tighten Vanni embargo

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 January 2001, 18:40 GMT]
Four fishermen complained to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Mannar Tuesday that the Sri Lanka Navy shaved their heads and assaulted them severely on trumped up charges that they were defying the Vanni embargo. Fishermen in Mannar complain that the SLN arrests and beats them up regularly, accusing them of smuggling essential commodities banned under Colombo's decade long economic embargo on the Vanni region. Meanwhile the SLN’s intelligence wing began deployment in the northern coastal parts of the Mannar island Tuesday. The deployment is aimed at monitoring and curbing sea borne infiltration by the Liberation Tigers from the mainland SLN, sources said.
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Tigers "already implementing" Norway's MOU

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 January 2001, 20:30 GMT]
The Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim met the Liberation Tigers' chief negotiator, Anton Balasingham in London Monday prior to his visit to Sri Lanka, sources close to the LTTE said. Amongst other matters, Mr. Solheim had also discussed Norway's proposed memorandum of understanding to de-escalate the conflict, they said. The LTTE views the MOU positively, but would sign it only if Sri Lanka also accepted its part in it, Balasingham had told Solheim according to the sources.
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Court to hear Mailanthanai massacre case

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 January 2001, 23:34 GMT]
(Newsfeature) The Mailanthanai massacre case in which 21 Sri Lanka army soldiers are accused of hacking to death 35 Tamils, including women, in a remote Batticaloa village on 9 August 1992 will be taken up for hearing in Colombo Monday lawyers appearing for the families of the victims said. "Justice delayed is justice denied. As with most cases in which SLA soldiers have been accused of massacring innocent Tamil civilians, a patently deliberate procrastinating strategy drawing on untenable pretexts is causing inordinate delays. This benefits the perpetrators of the murders," Mr.N. Kandasamy, a senior human rights activist in Colombo who has been monitoring the case for nine years told TamilNet Sunday.
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Colombo rejects cease-fire, Tamil coalition disappointed

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 January 2001, 18:57 GMT]
"If the government is only interested in pursuing the war against all the Tamil people and in imposing a military solution on them, then let it say so openly. That the Liberation Tigers have extended their cease-fire for another month is a political challenge for the Sri Lankan government. In this circumstance we cannot continue to believe that we can get a political solution from the Sri Lankan government" said Mr. N. Sri Kantha, a senior spokes person for the coalition of eleven Tamil parties in Colombo, Friday, reacting to Colombo categorically rejecting the cease-fire by the Liberation Tigers, which they extended for another month this week.
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Opposition march carries 'SL economy' in coffin

[TamilNet, Friday, 26 January 2001, 16:31 GMT]
Hundreds of opposition United National Party members and supporters marched through a busy suburb of Colombo Friday, carrying a coffin and protesting against the steeply rising cost of living and crime in Sri Lanka. UNP leaders and supporters addressed a meeting around 11 a.m. Friday at Sri Kotha, the party's national headquarters, lambasting the People's Alliance regime for the failing, cash strapped economy, the rupee devaluation and rising crime. The crowds then marched to the busy Nugegoda junction, carrying placards and shouting slogans against the Sri Lankan government.
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PA not capable of resolving conflict -Tamil coalition

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 07:32 GMT]
"Tamil parties firmly believe that Peoples Alliance (PA) Government is not capable of bringing the ethnic conflict to an end. That is why we have formed a coalition to urge the international community to actively join the peace efforts by pressuring the Sri Lankan Government to stop fighting and start negotiations with the Liberation Tigers," said the representatives of Tamil parties during a meeting with the Swedish Ambassador held in Colombo on Wednesday.
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"Right to life not guaranteed in constitution"

[TamilNet, Thursday, 25 January 2001, 05:10 GMT]
"The Sri Lankan constitution does not guarantee the right to life. Many human rights violations and murders are possible due to such loopholes in the constitution. The Sri Lankan government refused to sign an international convention that would have obliged it to act responsibly on the question of human rights violations and missing persons. It is the governmentís duty to explain the fate of persons reported missing. But it does not do anything. This is the reason why it is possible not to take any action to bring those responsible for murdering journalists to book" said V.T Thamilmaran, senior law lecturer at the University of Colombo Wednesday, addressing the 90 days remembrance meeting for slain Jaffna journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan in Colombo.
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Blast kills 11 soldiers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 January 2001, 11:09 GMT]
Eleven Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, including three officers were killed and five others were wounded in a blast near Muhamaalai in the Thenmaradchi sector on Tuesday evening, army sources in Colombo said. The blast was caused by a booby trap device, the sources said.
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Kaluatara political prisoners say conditions dire

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 January 2001, 04:44 GMT]
Tamil political prisoners in the Kalutara maximum-security prison face persistent health and sanitary hazards while having to survive corruption and official apathy, human rights officials said this week. Six hundred and twenty nine Tamil political prisoners, mostly from the northern and eastern parts of the island, are incarcerated in the Kalutara prison, south of Colombo. Three were killed and seven injured in an attack on them by a mob of Sinhala convicts on 12 December 1997. The prisoners told National Human Rights officials who visited them this week that their cases were being prolonged inordinately.
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Jaffna journalist tortured in solitary confinement

[TamilNet, Monday, 22 January 2001, 13:57 GMT]
A senior Jaffna journalist held incommunicado by the Sri Lankan Police since 2 January was assaulted with pipes and tortured, Human Rights Commission officials who were permitted to see him this weekend said Monday. The journalist, Mr. Nadarajah Thiruchelvam, had been held handcuffed for 12 days in solitary confinement by the Terrorism Investigation Division of the Police, they said. The police have neither filed any charges against Mr. Thiruchelvam nor have produced him in a court.
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Solheim to meet Balasingham

[TamilNet, Sunday, 21 January 2001, 18:48 GMT]
The Norwegian government, the official peace facilitator in the Sri Lankan conflict, is renewing efforts to persuade the government and the Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to avoid actions which might escalate the present hostilities into renewed all out war, thereby impairing Oslo’s ongoing peace initiative, diplomatic sources in Colombo said Sunday.
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Dissonant developments jar SLA music

[TamilNet, Saturday, 20 January 2001, 17:17 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army went ahead Saturday evening with a music show it had organized in Batticaloa with an audience comprising government officials despite the general shut down in the east coast town and its suburbs. Tamil musicians and singers from Colombo who has been booked for the show did not turn up, sources said.
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