Color-coded sails for Jaffna fishing boats

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 1999, 23:16 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army has relaxed a ban on using sails on fishing boats in Gurunakar, Paashayoor, Kolumbuththurai seas in Jaffna with effect from today, September 4, said sources. However, the fishermen will have to use sails with the colour assigned to them by the army, added sources.
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Two mothers claim wounded Tiger

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 September 1999, 20:41 GMT]
Two women in Batticaloa are claiming that an ex-militant whose memory has been affected by shrapnel lodged in his cranium is their son. The case was brought up yesterday by the two women at the office of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), a paramilitary group operating with the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and the Special Task Force (STF) in Batticaloa. Both produced certificates of birth for the youth to claim him as their son.
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PLOTE to file legal action

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 1999, 03:37 GMT]
The PLOTE said today that it is contemplating legal actions against police in Vavuniya for assaulting one of its members for helping two children who were wounded in retaliatory fire by the Sri Lankan Security Forces.
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SLA advance in Vaakarai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 17:39 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army moved up to Kathiraveli unopposed by the Tigers in an operation launched in the early hours of the morning today to take the coastal areas beyond Vaakarai, 64 km. north of Batticaloa. Kathiraveli is a coastal hamlet 15 km. north of Vaakarai.
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Ex-SLA troops identify further graves

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 16:04 GMT]
Former Sri Lanka Army Corporal Somaratna Rajapaksha and ex-soldier S.A.Perera today identified five more grave sites in the Ariyalai area in Jaffna where Tamil civilians arrested by Government troops were allegedly killed and buried.
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Temple play provokes SLA drama

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 1999, 07:26 GMT]
The trustee board members of a Tamil temple and the owner of a village sound service were grilled by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Batticaloa yesterday over a play critical of the Sri Lankan government that was staged on Sunday night at the shrine's annual festival.
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Ex-soldiers identify more Jaffna grave sites

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 18:35 GMT]
Fourteen places where scores of arrested Tamil civilians were allegedly killed and buried by the Sri Lanka Army in and around Chemmani near Jaffna town in 1996 and 1997 were identified today by ex-soldiers convicted in the rape and murder of the Jaffna school girl Krishanthy Kumarasamy.
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Demonstration against attack on Uthayan

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 10:03 GMT]
Over two hundred journalists, writers, students, priests and others took part in a demonstration in Jaffna town this noon to protest against the grenade attack on the Uthayan paper on August 21, blamed on a paramilitary organisation operating with the Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna.
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Soldiers desecrate LTTE burial site

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 1999, 03:10 GMT]
A group of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers on patrol damaged Libertion Tigers' war dead memorials at Eachchankulam, 9 km. west of Vavuniya town on Sunday, residents of the area said. The troops had also ordered the villagers to destroy the memorials, they added.
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Chemmani witness points out rape, murder scene

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 1999, 18:47 GMT]
Somaratna Rajapaksha showed investigators today the house of the couple who were dragged from their home and allegedly murdered by SLA soldiers while watching a video movie with their two children at Mulli in Ariyalai.
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Key witness identifies Jaffna grave sites

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 1999, 12:28 GMT]
Ex. Sri Lanka Army Corporal Somaratna Rajapaksha identified five places near Jaffna town today in which, according to him, about forty-three civilians arrested and killed by Sri Lankan Security forces may lie buried. The Jaffna press was briefed on the developments by state counsel Yasantha Kothagoda this afternoon at Chemmani.
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Ex-soldier goes to identify Jaffna mass graves

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 1999, 07:15 GMT]
Somaratna Rajapaksha, the SLA corporal convicted in the rape and murder of the Jaffna school girl Krishanthi Kumarasamy, told the district judge in the northern town this morning that Police investigators who questioned him on the alleged mass graves in Chemmani did not record the names of SLA officials who, according to him, were involved in the arrest and killing of more than six hundred civilians in the peninsula in 1996-97.
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LTTE-SLA clash in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 1999, 17:07 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army soldier was seriously wounded in a confrontation with the Liberation Tigers in Jaffna today. Sources said that the Tigers had attacked an SLA patrol near Saanthanayahi Vidyalayam in Madduvil south around 1.30 p.m. this afternoon.
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Four University students arrested

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 1999, 15:08 GMT]
Four Tamil undergraduates from the University of Moratuwa were arrested by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Colombo last night. The whereabouts of the students were not known until this noon sources said. All are from Jaffna.
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Detained soldiers stage roof protest

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 1999, 11:53 GMT]
Ten Sri Lanka Army soldiers detained at the Jaffna prison climbed to the roof of the prison building this morning protesting at their detention in the peninsula said sources. The soldiers shouted "help us" from the top of the roof.
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PLOTE calls Hartal in Vavuniya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 August 1999, 06:33 GMT]
Shops were closed and streets were deserted in Vavuniya this morning in response to the Hartal called by the PLOTE today as a token protest against attacks on the people of the northern town by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). Sources said there was no traffic on the roads.
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ACTC leader's Jaffna trip stalls

[TamilNet, Friday, 27 August 1999, 16:53 GMT]
The leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC), Mr. Kumar Ponnambalam was denied an air ticket to Jaffna today because he had not obtained permission from the Ministry of Defence for visiting the north.
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Child's death 'accident' - Judge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 1999, 20:37 GMT]
Vavuniya-based SLA troops were accused at an inquest today of killing a two-year old girl. However the Magistrate returned the verdict of accidental death.
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Troops, paramilitaries disrupt temple festival

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 1999, 16:22 GMT]
The annual festival at the Siththaandy Murugan temple was disrupted last night by Sri Lanka Army troops and marauding cadres of the Razeek group. The annual festival draws thousands of devotees of the Tamil warrior god from many parts of the eastern province. Siththaandy is 21 kilometres north of Batticaloa.
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Children killed, hurt in firing

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 1999, 09:27 GMT]
A two year old child was killed, two other children, two members of TELO and a Policeman were wounded in a shooting incident which followed after a grenade was lobbed at the Policemen on guard at the Police point at Veppankulam refugee camp transformer this morning around 5.30 said sources. Veppankulam is about 3 miles west of Vavuniya along Vavuniya - Mannar road.
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