"LTTE too taking risks with peace" -TNA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 18:01 GMT]
"There must be no assumption that it is only the government of Sri Lanka which is taking risks; it must be realized that even the LTTE is taking risks when it is engaged in the peace process," said Mr.Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance parliamentary group when moving an adjournment motion Tuesday in the Sri Lankan parliament. He appealed to the international Community on behalf of the Tamil National Alliance not to take any step that would prejudice the legitimate struggle of the Tamil people for equality of this country.
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Sri Lanka's conditions for talks create an 'impasse' - Balasingham

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 June 2002, 12:42 GMT]
The Norwegian peace initiative in Sri Lanka has been delayed by the government’s failure to implement the terms of the permanent ceasefire with the Liberation Tigers and is threatened by the hostile intervention of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the LTTE’s chief negotiator and political advisor, Mr. Anton Balasingham, told the Tamil Guardian this week.
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Parliament to debate TNA motion on cease-fire agreement

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 June 2002, 22:21 GMT]
The adjournment motion submitted to the Speaker by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is scheduled to be taken up for a three-hour debate in the parliament Tuesday morning. The motion urges the United National Front government to take immediate steps to fully implement the confidence building measures embodied in the cease-fire agrement signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers in order to ensure that the objective of the agreement of finding a negotiated solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is fulfilled.
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SLA refuses to vacate Hartley College

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 14:17 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army refused to remove its camp from one of Sri Lanka's leading schools, the Point Pedro Hartley College in Jaffna. The SLA's Jaffna commander has conveyed the decision to the District Additional Director of Education this week.
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SLA holds Valaichchenai temples

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 June 2002, 11:39 GMT]
The Sri Lanka armed forces have not yet vacated several places of worship they are occupying in the Valaichchenai area, 32 kms north of Batticaloa district as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement signed between the government the Liberation Tigers, residents said.
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Kalkuda residents seek return of church, temples and homes

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 20:35 GMT]
(News Feature) The Sri Lanka army camp at Kalkuda junction , encompassing several public buildings including places of worship, a post office, a rest house and the thirty homes of local people, is being maintained in violation of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Liberation Tigers, a petition to the international monitors by the village’s residents said Friday. Kalkuda is 32 km north of Batticaloa in eastern province.
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‘Help Vanni demining’ plea to UN agencies

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 12:06 GMT]
The demining effort in the Vanni is suffering from limited resources and is in desperate need of international assistance, a meeting of local and international non-governmental organisations, including UN agencies, was told by the coordinator of efforts in the region last week .
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Truce monitors protest military conduct

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 June 2002, 10:38 GMT]
(News Feature) Tensions between the Sri Lankan armed forces and local residents increased this weekend in the Batticaloa and Amparai districts following new incidents of violence and harassment by the military, reports said Saturday. The vicious assaults of four fishermen by police commandos prompted the head of the local ceasefire monitors' head to plead with the security forces "to desist from violating the ceasefire and arresting and torturing innocent youths under various pretexts," press reports said.
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SLMM chief in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 May 2002, 23:41 GMT]
The head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Retd. Major General Trond Furuhovde Friday held extensive discussions with Sri Lankan Navy officials at the Karainagar naval base in the Jaffna district in a bid to defuse the ongoing tension over the Navy’s refusal to permit access to the islets off Jaffna for political cadres of the Liberation Tigers.
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'Strategic’ camps to remain despite ceasefire terms - Army chief

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 May 2002, 01:07 GMT]
Amid renewed pressure for the Sri Lankan armed forces to vacate schools, places of worship and other public places as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement, Army chief Lieutenant General Lional Balagalle said Friday that his troops would not withdraw from camps ‘of strategic importance and those within the high security zones.’ These withdrawals would happen only if “the two parties agree on disarmament,” he told the state-owned Daily News.
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"Rules for islands humiliating, wont enter" - LTTE

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 21:43 GMT]
"We will not enter the islands of Jaffna in compliance with the conditions that the Sri Lanka Navy has imposed on us now. The Navy's action is aimed at further subverting the peace process and creating a fear psychosis among the people of the islands," said Mr. Ilamparithi, the head of the political office of the Liberation Tigers in Jaffna, responding Thursday to the 12 conditions stipulated by the Sri Lanka Navy for allowing his colleagues to engage in political work in the islands of the northern peninsula.
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Sri Lankan troops ‘enter LTTE territory’

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 20:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers crossed into territory held by the Liberation Tigers in Batticaloa on May 24, violating the terms of the permanent ceasefire, press reports said Thursday. LTTE officials have lodged a complaint with the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) the reports added.
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STF ‘deliberately’ violated ceasefire - SLMM

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 20:13 GMT]
The arrest and torture of a member of the Liberation Tigers by the elite Special Task Force (STF) constituted a deliberate breach of the permanent ceasefire according to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), as the troops had penetrated over one kilometre into LTTE-held territory to carry out the attack.
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Islands imbroglio continues amid new conditions

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 18:52 GMT]
(News Feature) The Sri Lanka Navy continued to resist entry of political cadres of the Liberation Tigers into the islands off the Jaffna peninsula, press reports said this week. In the latest development in the acrimonious and long running saga, the Sri Lankan government backed the Navy, insisting that the LTTE's activists must accept twelve conditions if they are to get access to the tens of thousands of Tamil people who inhabit the islands.
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Jaffna fishermen say military restrictions not lifted

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 16:18 GMT]
Fishermen in Jaffna this week protested that the Sri Lankan military was refusing to lift restrictions on their livelihoods, in breach of the terms of the permanent ceasefire signed by the government and the Liberation Tigers. The Navy meanwhile said that irrespective of the ceasefire agreement, it retains the right to impose restrictions at its own discretion.
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More Tigers begin political work

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 May 2002, 16:03 GMT]
Scores of cadres from the Liberation Tigers’ political section arrived in Jaffna and Vavuniya earlier this week, Tamil press reports said. Forty-nine LTTE cadres arrived in Jaffna this week whilst twelve entered Vavuniya. More LTTE volunteers are expected to arrive in Vavuniya and Mannar soon.
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Military intransigence, LTTE ban thwart direct talks

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 May 2002, 11:09 GMT]
(News Feature) The Sri Lankan military's continuing refusal to implement the terms and conditions of the 3-month old permanent ceasefire and the government's back-pedalling on the issue of deproscription of the Liberation Tigers is thwarting the holding of direct talks between the two sides, the Tamil Guardian newspaper quoted Mr. Anton Balasingham, the LTTE's chief negotiator and political advisor as saying Monday.
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SLA leaves five schools, unusable say officials

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 May 2002, 12:45 GMT]
Education officials in Jaffna said Monday that they cannot commence classes in two schools vacated by the Sri Lanka Army in the Kopay division because most of the buildings in them are damaged. "We haven’t got any assurance from the military or the education ministry that the two schools are free of landmines and booby traps", one of them said. The Sri Lankan security forces occupy more than 80 schools in the Northeast province of the island, but have vacated only three in the north and two in the east so far.
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'S.L Security forces still in temples' - Hindu body

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 May 2002, 14:37 GMT]
The Federation of Hindu Temples in Batticaloa and Amparai said Sunday that the Sri Lankan security forces in the region continue to encompass more than 15 places of worship in the two districts within the defence perimeters of their camps. The trustee boards of fourteen Hindu temples in Batticaloa and Amparai complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Saturday that their precincts and environs are still occupied by Sri Lankan security forces.
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Tigers prepare for economic development

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 May 2002, 20:07 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers are making preparations for economic development and infrastructure reconstruction in the north and east, a senior LTTE official said Friday. Mr. S. Karikalan, deputy head of the LTTE's political section, was speaking at a seminar for Government departmental heads held in Kokkaddicholai, 16 kilometres southwest of Batticaloa.
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