LTTE Headquarters,
                                                Tamil Eelam.
                                                28. February 1997


PRESS RELEASE
NEWS FROM TAMIL EELAM

BUS DRIVERS BEGIN STRIKE IN OCCUPIED JAFFNA
	Bus transport is at a halt in army-occupied Jaffna where drivers
	and conductors are protesting against physical abuse by the
	Sinhala army at military checkpoints. Workers say the harassment
	they are facing from soldiers is intolerable and they are no
	longer prepared to subject themselves to daily intimidation and
	assaults. Matters reached boiling point on Monday when a Tamil
	bus conductor was beaten senseless by troops who signalled down
	his vehicle at Ariakulam checkpoint. The Tamil passengers on
	board were also set upon. Buses have not been functioning in
	Jaffna since Wednesday when the protest, called by the Bus
	Employees Union, began.

ARMY FIRES AT CROWDED STREET
	Sri Lankan troops opened fire on Tamil civilians on a busy road
	near Mannar hospital after finding one of their army intelligence
	officers dead. The army reprisal attack came soon after soldiers
	put the spy's dead body in the Mannar hospital. Witnesses say
	troops gunned the street randomly sending civilians scattering to
	safety. A Tamil woman (Aloysius Amma) was severely wounded. A
	number of others escaped with minor gun-shot injuries. Terrorist
	attacks like this by the army on Tamil civilians is carefully
	screened by a comprehensive government news-ban which applies to
	the northeast Tamil region.

ARMY BURNS DOWN FARMER'S HOUSE
	Sri Lankan soldiers have set fire to a house belonging to a Tamil
	farmer, burning with it 2000 lbs of rice that had just been
	prepared for selling. The troops were engaged in one of their
	so-called round-up and search operations in Iththikulam,
	Pattalipuram and Veeramanagar. The farmer, Ponnan Kanagar, has
	been made homeless and penniless by the assault. And the loss of
	his stock of rice has undone 5 months of intensive paddy
	cultivation and destroyed his livelihood.

SCHEME BRINGS COMFORT TO MULLAITIVU RESIDENTS
	An accelerated development scheme undertaken by the LTTE
	administration in conjunction with the Tamils Rehabilitation
	Organisation (TRO) is benefiting a wide range of people in
	Mullaitivu. The residents of the area - which was recently
	recovered from the grip of the Sri Lankan military - are now
	getting tangible help in the form of employment, free education,
	and building materials. Recreation centres now allow the young
	and old to undertake reading activities and loans have been given
	to help people start businesses. Around 200 families previously
	without land have been allocated plots to build homes.

BOOK HIGHLIGHTS RESISTANCE TO SINHALA EXPANSIONISM
	A new book has been published in Tamil Eelam sketching Sri
	Lanka's persistent attempts to disrupt the contiguity of the
	Tamil homeland by settling armed Sinhala colonists into strategic
	places. "Vanankaa Man" - roughly translated "The Land that
	Refused to Surrender" - details how the late minister Lalith
	Athulathmudali transported Sinhala colonisers to Manal-Aru and
	tried thereby to create a strip of land which divided the north
	of the island from the East. Thousands of Tamils, driven from
	their homes, were made refugees overnight by the scheme. This
	book charts the heroic attempts of Tamils to resist the growing
	tide of Sinhala expansionism which was routinely evicting Tamils
	from their ancestral homes and threatening their national
	integrity. With an introduction by the Tamil national leader V.
	Prabhakaran, the book is an important historical record of Tamil
	Eelam's fervent struggle for survival.

Political Committee,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

(English translation of the LTTE statement released by
LTTE International Secretariat, 211 Katherine Road, London E6 1BU,
United Kingdom. Tel:0181- 503 4294 / Fax: 0181-470 8593)