MP lists occupied temples, schools in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2002, 16:10 GMT]
Trincomalee parliamentarian R. Sampanthan Monday sent a letter by fax to the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe listing schools, places of worship, private lands and public buildings in the Trincomalee district which have not been vacated by the State armed forces even one hundred and fifteen have passed after signing the ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers on February 23. The list included five places of worship, twelve schools and eighteen public buildings and private lands which are still in the hands of State armed forces.
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Sri Lanka tourism awaits peace dividend

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 June 2002, 09:18 GMT]
Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka have not shown any significant increase despite the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Liberation Tigers, Tourism Minister Gamini Lokuge told The Sunday Leader.
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Mines wound four

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 June 2002, 02:11 GMT]
Three children and a man were injured in three separate incidents in Jaffna recently after triggering landmines. Of the three children, one boy has lost sight in one eye while another lost all ten of his fingers, sources said.
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Peace secretariat official's visit to China deplored

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2002, 18:25 GMT]
"It is most disturbing that a member of the Peace Secretariat has gone to China along with the Defence Minister and the Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy presumably to procure arms and to modernize the Navy at the expense of the poor people of this country. This has to be viewed in the context that Tamil fishermen in the northeast view the Sri Lanka Navy as an undisciplined force," said Tamil Human Rights lawyer Mr.K.Sivapalan Saturday. Mr. Sivapalan is a member of the Trincomalee Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
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SLA stops fishing boats coming ashore

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2002, 14:22 GMT]
Fishermen in Inparutti near Pt. Pedro in Jaffna blocked the main coastal road Saturday when the Sri Lanka army refused to let more than 24 catamarans and 12 boats come ashore as these had not obtained permits from the military to fish in the sea. Fishermen in Inparutti said that they had set out to sea Friday evening without obtaining permits from the SLA because Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defence had promised Thursday to lift draconian controls on fishing following an agitation by the Federation of Fisheries Co-op Societies in Northern Province last week.
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Navy threatens Kayts businessmen

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 June 2002, 11:45 GMT]
Sri Lankan Navy personnel Thursday threatened Tamil businessmen in Kayts who had joined residents in the rest of the Jaffna peninsula in observing a general strike (hartal) on Wednesday to protest the armed forces failure to implement the ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers. Navy personnel visited the businesses in a pickup truck and warned the owners that they should not close their establishments “based on newspaper stories,” the Sudar Oli reported Friday.
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'Just solution will end armed struggle'

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 June 2002, 14:10 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers are committed to the ceasefire agreement with the Sri Lankan government and will honour its terms and conditions, but must remain strong until the rights of the Tamil people have been secured, a senior LTTE commander said Monday.
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Navy blocks resettlement of Tamil families in Thiriyai

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 June 2002, 21:41 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy Wednesday refused permission to a group of displaced Tamil families to enter their destroyed village, Thiriyai- a Tamil village about 42 km north of Trincomalee town- to make preliminary arrangements for their resettlement.
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Paper lists public places occupied by military

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 June 2002, 12:36 GMT]
The Sri Lankan military is occupying at least 139 places of worship, 74 schools and 113 public buildings across the north and east of the island in violation of the permanent ceasefire between the government and the Liberation Tigers, the Tamil Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. The London-based weekly published the details, categorised by type and district, of the public locations it said are presently under military occupation.
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Jaffna protests planned over truce breaches

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 11 June 2002, 06:32 GMT]
The Jaffna Humanitarian Organisations' Committee called on all residents in the peninsula to observe a day's strike on Wednesday in protest at the Sri Lankan government's reluctance to fulfil the requirements set out in the ceasefire accord it signed with the Liberation Tigers. The organisation appealed for all residents to remain in their homes to demonstrate the strength of their feeling.
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"New fishing regulations breach cease-fire agreement" - SLMC MP

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2002, 17:03 GMT]
"The Sri Lanka government's gazette notification of the fishing restriction issued last month is a clear breach of the cease-fire agreement the government signed with the Liberation Tigers," said Mr.K.M.Thowfeek, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress parliamentarian for the Trincomalee district at a discussion organised by the Trincomalee Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held at the Kinniya divisional secretariat Monday morning.
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Students boycott classes over Army presence

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2002, 11:43 GMT]
The students of Point Pedro Hartley College and Methodist Girls College in Vadamaradchi division in Jaffna district Monday boycotted their classes demanding that the Sri Lanka Army should vacate their schools immediately as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers.
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SLMM denies commenting on gazette

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 June 2002, 02:44 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission Sunday denied a report by the Daily Mirror that Hagrup Haukland, Deputy head of the SLMM, had stated that the Sri Lankan government’s gazette notification of fishing restrictions issued last month conflicts with the provisions of the ceasefire agreement the government signed with the Liberation Tigers.
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500,000 palmyra trees said destroyed

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 June 2002, 02:19 GMT]
Around half a million palmyra trees have been destroyed by the Sri Lanka armed forces and the practice continues even after the ceasefire agreement came into effect, press reports quoted Mr Sivapatham, Head of Palmyra Development board as telling BBC radio. The local populace seems to be losing faith due to the armed forces continuing to build new bunkers during the peace process, he added.
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Police ordered to halt temple withdrawals

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2002, 18:36 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police in Batticaloa said Saturday that it has stopped work on vacating four of its camps in the district situated in places of religious worship on orders from the Inspector General of Police (IGP). "We just got the orders and stopped dismantling the defences. We do not know the reason," said the Officer in Charge of the Maamangam Pillaiyar Temple Police camp Saturday.
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‘SLA constructions undermine truce’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 June 2002, 18:04 GMT]
The construction of new camps and bunkers by the Sri Lankan military in Jaffna was undermining the restoration of normalcy and violated the spirit of the ceasefire agreement between the LTTE an the government, the head of the Liberation Tigers' political section in the northern peninsula, Mr. T. Ilamparithi, told a press briefing Saturday.
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‘LTTE committed to ceasefire’

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 June 2002, 22:20 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers will fully implement the ceasefire agreement between themselves and the Sri Lankan government and are determined to ensure the truce does not fail, a senior member of the LTTE’s political division in Jaffna told a protest rally by students in the northern peninsula Wednesday , according to local press reports.
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Youths continue to face STF threats

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 18:06 GMT]
The four Tamil youths from Karaithivu whose arrest and vicious assault by the Special Task Force last Wednesday drew criticism from ceasefire monitors are said to have received new threats from the police commandos. Fresh complaints in this regard have been lodged with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Ampara, officials said.
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'Wont fall for provocations to break truce' - Karikalan

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 16:28 GMT]
"The power of our people is greater than the power of the gun. We have come into areas controlled by the Sri Lanka army because we trust the might of the Tamil masses. The commandos of the Special Task Force are telling our people to make coffins when the whole world is exhorting all of us to make peace. In truth, the STF is trying to bury the peace process in those coffins," said Mr. Karikalan, a senior official of the LTTE's political division, addressing a rally of more than five thousand students in Thambiluvil, 76 kilometres south of Batticaloa, Thursday.
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Monitors say Navy restrictions violate truce

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2002, 00:19 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government’s gazette notification of fishing restrictions issued last week under the Prevention of Terrorism Act conflicts with the provisions of the ceasefire agreement the government signed with the Liberation Tigers, press reports Thursday quoted international truce monitors as saying.
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