Two SLA soldiers killed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 December 2001, 14:43 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers were killed in a counter-ambush by the Liberation Tigers near Mahindapura SLA camp in Serunuwara division, south of Trincomalee district, around 7.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, security sources said.
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Five SLA surrender over Muslims' massacre

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2001, 18:36 GMT]
A Lieutenant and four soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army were remanded by the Teldeniya Magistrate Monday in connection with the massacre of ten Muslim youths at Udawalathenne in Kandy district on 5 December, the day of the general elections. They surrendered at the official residence of the Magistrate through their lawyer and made statements about the killings. The Magistrate Mr. C. V. Rajapakse then ordered the suspects be remanded till 26 December. Meanwhile a high-powered team of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police led by its Director Monday questioned the former Deputy Defense Minister General Anuruddha Ratwatte about the whereabouts of his two sons.
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UNF’s stand on Jaffna fishing ban questioned

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 December 2001, 11:29 GMT]
The federation of Vadamaradchi fishermen’s co-operative societies said that it intends to begin demonstrations and sit in protests soon if the new government does not take meaningful steps to lift the total ban on fishing in the seas off coast between Thikkam and Thondmanar and the five-hour restriction along the Katkovalam coast in Pt. Pedro. A spokesman for the federation said that Sri Lanka army soldiers assaulted the secretary and treasurer of the Munai Fishermen’s Cooperative Society Sunday for setting out to sea before the stipulated time.
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Army controls pose acid test for UNP

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2001, 16:50 GMT]
Thousands of farmers face ruin in the northern parts of Batticaloa because of Sri Lanka Army imposed restrictions on tractors, sources said. On 12 November the SLA banned farmers from taking their tractors to plough fields in the western hinterland of the eastern district. The ban was imposed on the eve of the ploughing period. More than 15, 000 acres couldn’t be tilled on time for sowing as a consequence. “Our problem is an acid test for the UNP government which says it will lift such unfair restrictions by the SLA which affect ordinary Tamils like us in the north and east. If the army comes up with its usual excuse that this is a security related matter, will the new government have the mettle and authority to determine the truth and let us carry on with our cultivation?” asked a senior member of the Agrarian Services Committee for Peruvelikandam, the body representing the interests of farmers in this region.
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Police search Gen. Ratwatte’s home

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 December 2001, 13:00 GMT]
A special team from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Police in Colombo Friday searched the residence of Sri Lanka’s former Deputy Minister of Defence, Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte. Police said that the CID was looking for Mr. Lohan Ratwatte, the son of the ex-minister, wanted in connection with the murder of ten Muslims on 5 December. The CID team found a windscreen of a ‘Defender’ Jeep in Gen. Ratwatte house in Mahiyyawa, a suburb of Kandy, in the island’s central province. The SLA’s Defender jeeps were used by Gen. Ratwatte’s men for rigging the polls, intimidating and attacking political opponents, Police sources said. The ex-minister was not present in the house when the CID team from Colombo searched it, Police said.
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Mutur SLA intelligence, Valaichenai Police attacked

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 December 2001, 03:16 GMT]
Three soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army intelligence unit stationed at Palathoppur, about five kilometres off south of Mutur town in Trincomalee district were killed and at least six were wounded in an attack by the Liberation Tigers around 11.15 p.m. Tuesday night, security sources said. On Sunday 9 November a group of SLA soldiers of the Palathoppur SLA Intelligence Unit in ambush killed three LTTE troopers in this area, security sources said. Meanwhile, in Valaichenai, 32 kilometres north of Batticaloa, the Tigers attacked the main Police camp around midnight, killing six military trained Policemen and wounding eleven. The Tigers went off with the camps armoury, paramilitary sources working with the SLA in the east said.
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Mutur Tamils appeal to Kofi Annan

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2001, 11:27 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamils in Mutur east in the southern part of the Trincomalee district demonstrated Monday demanding that the Sri Lanka army and Navy should stop bombarding their villages immediately. More than thirty thousand Tamils live in about forty villages in Mutur east. ìWe are unable to fish in the sea because Sri Lanka Navy gunboats attack us. We are unable to cultivate our rice fields because the SLA indiscriminately fires artillery on us day and night. Our children do not go to schools due to traumatic experiences caused by the loss of lives in their familiesî, states the memorandum sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations by the Tamils of Mutur east.
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SLA intelligence operative killed in east

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 December 2001, 09:23 GMT]
An operative of the Sri Lanka army intelligence was killed in a counter ambush by the Liberation Tigers near the Batticaloa town in the early hours of the morning around 3.30 a.m Monday. A soldier was wounded in the attack. The military intelligence operative was identified as Corporal K. S Satkunanathan alias 'Kuyil'. He was a member of the 'Nithi group', paramilitary sources working with the SLA said.
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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 calls on Police to arrest Gen. Ratwatte

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 December 2001, 12:45 GMT]
The UNP urged the Police Friday to arrest Sri Lanka's ex-Deputy Minister for Defence, Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte for allegedly being involved in the murder of ten Muslims in Kandy on Wednesday and for unleashing violence to rig the polls in the district. The poll at 29 stations in the Kandy (Mahanuwara) was cancelled due to the intensity of violence there, Sri Lanka's commissioner of Elections said. The UNP spokesman Mr. Karunasena Kodithuwakku said that armed gangs backed by ex-Deputy minister for Defence, Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte, and his son, Mr. Lohan Ratwatte.
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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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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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SLA, PA blockade costs Tamil legislators

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 December 2001, 07:20 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance officials said Thursday that they might be losing at least three seats in the Sri Lankan Parliament because more than hundred and forty thousand voters were deliberately prevented from voting by the Sri Lanka army in the Batticaloa and Vanni electoral districts. Election officials in Batticaloa said that if the TNA had got 20097 more votes it would have been eligible for four seats in the district. Similarly, the TNA may get only three seats in the Vanni because of the SLA blockade on voters who came to vote from areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers, officials said.
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SLA allows EPDP, PA to rig at bridge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 16:30 GMT]
A lecturer at the Jaffna University and three undergraduates were attacked by an armed gang of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party on the Palam Road near Arasadi junction close to Jaffna. In Batticaloa, a grenade was lobbed at the residence of the Tamil National Alliance candidate Indrakumar Prasanna in the heart of the high security zone in the eastern town. Election officials in Batticaloa said that although the Sri Lanka army claimed that it had barred Tamils from coming through the entry point at Vavunathivu near the eastern town for security reasons, goons of the People’s Alliance and the EPDP rigged thousands of votes at the clustered booths here from morning.
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Voters stopped by SLA demonstrate in Mankerni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 11:11 GMT]
More than a thousand Tamils demonstrated in front of the Mankerni Sri Lanka army camp, 50 kilometres north of Batticaloa, this morning after the military refused them permission to pass the entry point to cast their votes Wednesday morning. The voters had come in buses, vans and tractors to the Mankerni SLA entry point from the villages of Panichchankerni, Vaakarai, Paalchenai etc., The SLA threatened to fire on the voters and their vehicles, sources said.
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EPDP rigs polls in Jaffna, Mannar

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 09:15 GMT]
Police sources in Jaffna said that the Eelam People’s Democratic Party fired on an opposition candidate and lobbed a grenade at his vehicle near Vaddukoddai junction this morning around 9 a.m. They said that the EPDP had also fired on a bus in which voters were travelling near Chankanai and had smashed a Tamil National Alliance van on Stanley Road in the heart of Jaffna town. Meanwhile, an observer with the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), an independent monitoring group, in Jaffna said that the EPDP cadres were seen rigging the polls in the island of Kayts, Velanai and at the polling centres at the Jaffna Hindu College, St. John’s College and the Nelliyadi Maththiya Maha Viththiyalayam. Some voters who went to these centres found their ballots already cast, the PAFFREL source said.
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SLA bars thousands of Tamils from voting in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 05:44 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army barred thousands of Tamil voters in Batticaloa Wednesday from casting their votes. SLA sources in the east claimed that the main entry points from the district's western hinterland were closed on a special directive from President Chandrika Kumaratunga. More than 45,000 voters would not be able to cast their ballot because of the Presidential directive to shut down the entry points, Mr. Pon Selvarasa, ex-MP for Batticaloa and a candidate of the Tamil National Alliance said.
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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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