Protest in Jaffna against SLA ban on fishing

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 May 2001, 14:23 GMT]
More than hundred and fifty fishermen in Valvettithurai in Jaffna sat in a protest fast from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday demanding that the Sri Lanka army should lift the ban on fishing in the seas off the peninsula's Vadamaradchi division. A spokesman for the Valvettithurai fishermen told Tamilnet that the protest fast will continue until the ban is lifted and some of their reasonable requests are met. The SLA banned fishing in the seas off the coast from Sakkoattai to Thondamanar on 18 May.
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Thirty five under SIU, SLA detention in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 May 2001, 15:16 GMT]
Thirty-five persons are being held in the Sri Lanka army's 21-1 brigade base and the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Police in Vavuniya, district court sources in the northern border town said Friday. All were taken into custody under the Emergency Regulations, they said. The detention of the thirty-five was determined when the Vavuniya district judge Mr. M. Ilancheliyan Thursday visited the two detention centres gazetted under a new Emergency Regulation. He instructed the officers in charge of the detention centres at the 21-1 brigade and the Police SIU camp to inform the Human Rights Commission of a person's detention within 48 hours of his/her arrest and to display a list of all persons in their custody at the district court every fortnight.
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Arrests on the increase again in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 May 2001, 09:09 GMT]
Fifteen persons arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces in Vavuniya in the first two weeks of May 2001 are reported missing according to complaints lodged with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) office in the northern border town. Fifteen persons were arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces last week as well, according to HRC sources in Vavuniya. They said that arrests and detention by the security forces have increased in Vavuniya in recent weeks. Many relatives are still trying to find the places where the arrested persons are being held. An HRC official said that efforts by his organisation to locate the missing persons were not successful.
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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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Deep penetration group kills one, takes three

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2001, 17:44 GMT]
One civilian was killed and three were reported missing in an attack by a Sri Lanka army Deep Penetration team near Mathurankerni Kulam, 70 kilometres north of Batticaloa, Tuesday around 10 a.m. Yoganathan Kesavarajah, 24, had gone to chop firewood when he was shot dead by the SLA’s special penetration group. His wife is pregnant with their first child, relatives said. The three persons who are reported missing, had gone to collect honey in the jungles near Mathurankerni Kulam. Relatives said that the three were abducted by two SLA deep penetration teams.
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More SLA mine fields destroyed in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 May 2001, 10:59 GMT]
A large number of anti-personnel landmine fields left behind by the Sri Lanka army were located and de-mined in twelve villages in the southern sector of the Vanni Western aid agency sources said Tuesday. They said that caches of mortar and artillery shells and explosives were also located and destroyed from these villages to ensure the safety of civilians who have begun to gradually resettle in this sector. The SLA was camped in the villages of the Vanni's southern sector from 1997 to November 1999.
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Barrage on Pallai, claymore blast in Mannar

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 May 2001, 14:06 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army launched a barrage on Thambakaamam and Periyapalai in the southern sector of Jaffna which is under the control of the Liberation Tigers from Thursday night sources in the north said. The SLA sustained the barrage with heavy artillery from 8 a.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday morning. Meanwhile, two Special Task Force commandos were wounded when the vehicle in which they were travelling was hit by a claymore mine blast in Thoattaveli, 10 kilometres west of Mannar on the main road to Talaimannar Friday afternoon around 3.30 p.m.
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12 soldiers killed, 21 wounded in Tiger ambushes

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 May 2001, 07:51 GMT]
Twelve Sri Lanka Army soldiers were killed and 21 were wounded in two separate attacks by the Liberation Tigers Friday morning, said army sources in the northern town of Vavuniya. Earlier in a claymore mine blast on the Vavuniya-Mannar road, a SLA soldier was killed and another was wounded.
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Two killed, Muslim town tense

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2001, 13:31 GMT]
Oddamavadi, a Muslim town 34 kilometres north of Batticaloa, was tense Wednesday as following the murder of two cattle herders allegedly by Sri Lanka army soldiers from the Naavaladi camp. Shops in the Oddamavadi bazaar were shut down in protest Wednesday. The two men, Noor Mohammed Abdul Latif, 35, and Seeni Mohammdhu Sareef, 43, were taken out of their huts by armed men close to midnight and were beaten and shot to death, relatives said. The identity card of a SLA soldier and an army cap were found near the place where the bodies of the two herders lay this morning. A crowd that gathered round the bodies of the two herders Wednesday morning abused and attempted to assault SLA personnel who went to conduct inquiries at the scene of the murder.
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Batticaloa villages shelled

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2001, 13:28 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers stationed at the 23-3 Brigade Head Quarters fired several rounds of shells towards the villages of Kannankudha, Karaveddi and Thaandiyadi in the western hinterland of the Batticaloa district Wednesday noon, damaging some houses in the area, according to reports from the area.
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Thamil Chelvan's convoy hit by SLA claymore

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 May 2001, 08:53 GMT]
A convoy of the Liberation Tigers in which Mr. S.P Thamil Chelvan, the leader of the political wing of the LTTE, was travelling towards Mallavi where he was scheduled to meet Norwegian Peace envoy Mr. Eric Solheim was hit near Kokkavil by a claymore blast set off by a deep penetration team of the Sri Lanka army Tuesday afternoon, sources in Vanni said. A LTTE trooper was killed and two were wounded in the blast. They were travelling in a Mitsubishi Pajero that was providing security to Mr. Thamil Chelvan's vehicle, the sources added.
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Necessity for indefinite ceasefire to be stressed –paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 May 2001, 11:15 GMT]
The Norwegian peace envoy Mr. Eric Solheim will have meetings with Mr. Thamil Chelvan, head of the LTTE’s political section on 16 and 17 May in the Vanni. The meetings are expected to “focus on steps to bring about a suitable atmosphere for productive negotiations to be held between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government”. Meanwhile in its latest issue, the Tamil Guardian, the expatriate paper published from London, quoted sources in the Liberation Tigers, as saying “further discussions and clarifications on certain matters” had to be completed before the scheduling of peace talks could be considered. The LTTE sources, according to the paper, had dismissed as speculation reports in the Sri Lankan press that talks were imminent.
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3 SLA soldiers killed in claymore blast

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 May 2001, 17:22 GMT]
Three Sri Lanka Army soldiers were killed and four others were wounded when the Liberation Tigers set off a powerful claymore mine at Aluthnuwara in the east of the island around 4.30 p.m. Monday, army sources said.
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12 SLA soldiers killed at Sungawil -VoT

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2001, 18:50 GMT]
Twelve Sri Lanka Army soldiers were killed in an ambush by the Liberation Tigers at Sungawil in the Polonnaruwa district around 6.40 a.m Thursday. The LTTE ambush unit recovered 3 bodies of the SLA soldiers killed in the attack, the Voice of Tigers (VoT) radio said Friday evening.
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Tigers say discussing Norway ceasefire proposals

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 May 2001, 09:30 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers, in an official statement released in the Vanni Friday, slammed Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister for claiming that an agreement had been reached between the two sides. “It is premature and irresponsible on the part of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry to falsely project to the world media that an agreement has been reached,” the Tigers said. However the movement also said “substantial progress” had been made on the Norwegian Memorundum of Understanding (MOU) after intense discussions for a considerable time with the Norwegian facilitators. The LTTE said Norway had Wednesday suggested a programme for bilateral cessation of hostilities which the movement said was “constructive” proposal, but which requires “further clarifications and discussions before final agreement.”
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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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One killed, three wounded in Polannaruwa attack

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2001, 06:37 GMT]
A Sri Lanka army soldier was killed and two were wounded in an attack by the Liberation Tigers in Sungawil in the Polannaruwa district Thursday morning around 7.30 a.m. The Tigers hit an army post near the district border between Polannaruwa and Batticaloa. A security assistant at the checkpoint was also wounded in the attack. Sungawil is 21 kilometres northeast of the Polannaruwa town.
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Fire-fight amid Vesak gloom in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 May 2001, 12:12 GMT]
A Sri Lanka army soldier was killed and one was wounded in a fire-fight with the Liberation Tigers at Kommathurai, 18 kilometres north of Batticaloa town, Tuesday night around 8 p.m. Fighting broke out when SLA troops lying in ambush by a crossing point between the district's large hinterland controlled by the Liberation Tigers and the coast dominated by the army opened fire upon detecting the movement of armed persons.
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