Vadamaradchi fishing restrictions tightened further

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2001, 14:04 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army banned fishing at all times in Munai, a coastal village near Pt. Pedro from Tuesday. The army has also banned fishing in the coastal waters off the villages of Suppar Madam, Inparutty and Sakkottai in the Pt. Pedro area from 7 October. Fishing has also completely been banned from Thikkam to Thondamanar on the coast of the Vadamaradchi division of the Jaffna peninsula. The Sri Lanka Navy, meanwhile seized two catamarans from fishermen at sea off the Munai coast Monday night. The fishermen were arrested but released later.
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Two killed in Nagar Kovil

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 October 2001, 10:11 GMT]
Two Sri Lanka army soldiers was killed and at least four were wounded in an engagement with the Liberation Tigers ahead of the Forward Defence Line in Nagar Kovil on Jaffna’s southeastern coast Tuesday morning. The SLA and the LTTE exchanged artillery and mortar fire from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. The Tigers directed mortar fire on the Nagar Kovil SLA garrison and the military radar station in Kottodai.
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Tigers attack SLA ambush group

[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 October 2001, 06:53 GMT]
A Sri Lanka army soldier was killed and two were wounded in a counter ambush by the Liberation Tigers at Miyankulam junction on the Batticaloa-Colombo highway Saturday night around 11 p.m. military sources in the eastern town said. The soldiers were in an ambush party that had set out from the Miyankulam SLA camp to interdict a crossing point used by the Liberation Tigers. The camp is one of the eight military detachments that guard A 16 – the SLA’s Main Supply Route to the district.
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Tamils propose Prof. Sivathamby too for council

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2001, 20:00 GMT]
Tamil opposition parties in Sri Lanka's Parliament Saturday night proposed the names of Prof.Karthigesu Sivathamby, Dr.Devanesan Nesaiah, former judge Mr.T.Suntharalingam and former Treasury Secretary Mr.A.Shanmugalingam after a legal hitch precluded the nominee they selected Thursday. The three parties told the Prime Minister to appoint one from among the four names proposed by them to the constitutional council.
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500 rounded up in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 October 2001, 18:47 GMT]
A large number of people were rounded up and interrogated during a combined search operation by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and Police in Vavuniya town and its suburbs Thursday. No one was allowed to leave the town area during the operation which began around 11 a.m. and went on till 2 p.m., sources said.
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Investigators find more in Jaffna hospital grave

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2001, 14:49 GMT]
Forensic investigators found more human skeletal remains in a pit dug near the mortuary of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital Wednesday. Medical-legal sources said that the bones appeared to be mostly those of young persons. Bones and teeth that were found in the pit today were taken in three boxes for further forensic examination. The Jaffna courts ordered an investigation after construction workers of the Jaffna Municipal Council who were digging at the site came upon human bones and a saree on 18 September.
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Fisherfolk killed in Batticaloa amid SLA ban

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 October 2001, 12:06 GMT]
A fisherman was killed Wednesday in shelling by the Sri Lanka army on Aalankulam, 36 kilometres north of Batticaloa. Nagamani Nagalingam, 25, father of one, was fishing in the Aalankulam reservoir around 1.30 p.m. when he was hit by mortar fire from the SLA camp in Navalady, 6 kilometres northwest of Valaichenai. The SLA imposed harsh restrictions on fishing in the district last month. A widow was shot dead by the SLA on Sunday, 30 September, while dredging for fish and prawns by the lagoon coast in Vavunathivu near Batticaloa town.
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Soldier robs jewels, two troopers die

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 October 2001, 17:06 GMT]
A soldier was killed when the Liberation Tigers attacked the Sri Lanka army’s Forward Defence Lines in Omanthai, north of Vavuniya town Tuesday morning. Another soldier who was seriously wounded in an ambush by the Tigers in the Parayanaalankulam area west of Vavuniya Monday night succumbed to his injuries this afternoon, military sources in the northern border town said.
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Killing in Mutur raises 'homeguards scare' again

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 September 2001, 18:28 GMT]
Fear prevails in the interior villages southeast of Mutur following a shooting on Friday night in which a civilian in Thanganagar was killed and another was wounded. Residents of Thanganagar said that Sinhala homeguards working with the Sri Lankan security forces in the Serunuwara Police division had shot the two men while they were watching TV at home. Sinhala homeguards massacred seven villagers on 2 October last year in the Thanganagar area. Tamil villagers in Thanganagar-Poonagar area said they fear that the homeguards may strike again.
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Police arrest Tamils in Colombo, Galle

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 September 2001, 12:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka Police arrested more than forty Tamil civilians were arrested in Colombo and in the southern port town of Galle in search operations during the weekend. Twenty five were taken into custody in the capital and fifteen in Galle. “All the suspects are from the northeast province and are temporary residents. They are being interrogated for possible links with the Liberation Tigers,” Police sources said.
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IDP visiting home in Thenmaradchi knifed

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2001, 20:12 GMT]
Mr. Sinnathamby Kandaiah, 53, who went to see his home in Kodikamam in the Thenmaradchi division southeast of Jaffna town Saturday was admitted to the Manthikai hospital with knife wounds. Relatives who brought him to the hospital around 4.30 this afternoon said that he was found lying unconscious and that there were cuts on his body. The man, who regained consciousness later in the day, said he was knifed by Sri Lanka army soldiers in the area. Kandaiah's family was displaced by heavy fighting between the SLA and the LTTE last year.
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PA to discuss no-faith motion on Wednesday

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2001, 12:51 GMT]
The leaders of constituent parties of the ruling People's Alliance (PA) are scheduled to meet next Wednesday to discuss the present political situation following the submission of a no-confidence motion afresh against the government in parliament by opposition United National Party. Meanwhile opposition leaders are scheduled to meet the Speaker on October 8 to fix the date for debating the no-confidence motion. The parliament is due to meet on October 9.
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Tamils ignored in promoting Principals -CTTU

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2001, 12:13 GMT]
The Educational Services Board under the Ministry of Education has promoted 200 Principals to Grade One post. One of them is a Tamil from Nawalapitiya in the central province, another is a Muslim. The remaining 198 are Sinhalese. "Not a single Tamil medium Principal in the northeast province has got promotion. In fact about 850 vacancies exist in northeast Tamil medium schools. On the whole about 1,500 vacancies exist throughout the island for Tamil medium principals in all grades," said Mr.T.Mahasivam, General Secretary of the Ceylon Tamil Teachers' Union.
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‘Don’t resettle in areas mined by SLA’ - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 September 2001, 04:44 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers said Friday that displaced civilians in Jaffna are being resettled in areas where land mines laid by the Sri Lanka army haven’t been removed. They said that the family of six that was killed in a land mine explosion on 24 September was among the displaced residents who were resettled in Irupalai where no SLA mines fields have been cleared so far. Meanwhile, Jaffna court sources said that residents of Irupalai had complained to Jaffna District Judge T. Vignarajah about the danger they face from land mines left behind in the village by the SLA when he visited the scene of the explosion that killed the family on 24 September. The sources said that the matter would be recorded at the inquest.
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Tigers, SLA fight artillery duels in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2001, 17:02 GMT]
Three soldiers were killed in heavy shelling by the Liberation Tigers on Sri Lanka army positions in Mirusuvil, southeast of Jaffna town Wednesday night. The bodies of the soldiers killed in the attack were taken to the Palaly military hospital in Jaffna.
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'Fundamentalist’ mosque demolished in east

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 September 2001, 15:42 GMT]
A group of Muslim youth in Oddamavadi, 34 kilometres north of Batticaloa, demolished a mosque built by a ‘fundamentalist’ Islamic sect Wednesday, Police sources in the eastern town said. Friction between the followers of the sect and other Muslims in the general area has been brewing since January this year when a small group of adherents erected a temporary mosque in Brianthuraichenai, a small village on the outskirts of Oddamavadi, sources said. The sect preaches that women should remain at home and should be fully covered if they have to go out and prohibits jewellery. “They were in the habit of denouncing us as Kaffirs (unbelievers) and our mosques as the dwellings of Satan,” a Muslim cleric in the eastern town said.
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Thileepan commemorated in areas under SLA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 26 September 2001, 16:43 GMT]
The commemoration of Thileepan, a senior member of the Liberation Tigers who fasted unto death on 26 September 1987, was observed Wednesday in many parts of the northeastern province of Sri Lanka which are under the control of the Sri Lankan army.
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Award for senior Tamil journalists stopped

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 September 2001, 16:46 GMT]
Special awards for two senior Tamil journalists were cancelled on a directive by the Sri government, media sources said Tuesday. The North-eastern Provincial Council (NEPC) announced on 2 September that Mr.Ponnaiah Manikavasagam, the correspondent for the Tamil daily Thinakkural in Vavuniya and a regular contributor to the BBC and other international media, would receive the NEPC Governor's special journalism award for 2001. It also announced that Mr. Aiyathurai Nadesan, senior correspondent and political columnist for the Tamil daily Virakesari, would get an award for his book 'The history of the ethnic contradiction in Sri Lanka' published last year. The awards for the two senior Tamil journalists were stopped for political reasons, an official of the NEPC said.
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Massacre victims remembered in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 September 2001, 13:07 GMT]
Religious observances were held in Puthukudiyiruppu, 10 kilometres south of Batticaloa, Friday in remembrance of 17 men, women and children who were hacked to death allegedly by the Sri Lanka army soldiers on 21 September 1990. The Sri Lankan government has not made any effort so far to investigate the massacre. Several children escaped the massacre with machete and gunshot wounds. Nineteen civilians were killed here again on 5 December 1995, allegedly by the Special Task Force.
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World Bank questions Jaffna development

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2001, 15:51 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) Ahead of the visit to Sri Lanka on Wednesday by a World Bank team intending to study the government’s poverty alleviation plans, its local Director slammed the activities in Jaffna of the Ministry of Northern Development. Dr. Mariana Todorova says that whilst almost two thousand people are being employed there by the Ministry, not one person has actually benefited from its activities. The Ministry is headed by Douglas Devananda, leader of the paramilitary Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP).
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