LTTE Headquarters,
                                                Tamil Eelam.
                                                01. July 1997

PRESS RELEASE 
NEWS FROM TAMIL EELAM
                                           
	Please Note:
	Sri Lanka - which promotes itself as a civilised government - has
	stopped journalists going into Tamil areas for the past two years.
	
MASS PROTEST UNDERWAY IN MANNAR - UNHCR WILL BE HANDED PETITION
	Screened from the eyes of the world, thousands of desperate
	Tamils have gathered in Mannar to march against Sri Lanka's
	long-running food and medicine siege of Vanni, and what they
	perceive as a "war of extermination" against the Tamil people.
	Slogans and banners decry the repressive measures enforced by the
	Sinhala army in army-occupied areas, the regularity of rapes of
	Tamil women by Sinhala armed forces and the ruthless army tactics
	being employed to capture Tamil territory - i.e., crop burning,
	deliberate refugee generation and economic strangulation. The
	Confederation of Civilian Organisations and Union of NGOs
	organised the protest, which will end by a petition being handed
	through the UNHCR to the Sri Lankan president, who is directly
	responsible for this state of affairs.

BARRIER TROOPS SHOOT AT CIVILIANS
	Tamil travellers crossing the Uliyankulam military barrier in
	Mannar last week received the shock of their lives when Sinhala
	troops randomly opened fire on them. The civilian travellers
	ducked for safety and luckily injury was avoided. Every so often
	Sinhala troops go berserk in this manner usually to frighten and
	intimidate Tamil civilians and to assert authority over them.
	
CIVILIANS FLEE ARMY SHELLING
	Residents of Poothanvayal were woken at midnight last night and
	had to run for cover as artillery shells fired from Sri Lanka's
	Manal Aru army camp fell on their homes. The media ban ensures
	that this routine shelling of Tamil civilian centres goes
	unreported. Sri Lanka knows that if the outside world was aware
	of the methods it is using, tolerance of its "war for peace" may
	soon evaporate.
	
MAN RETURNING HOME GUNNED DOWN BY TROOPS IN URUTHIRAPURAM
	A Tamil man who went to recover possessions from the house he
	deserted when Sri Lankan troops invaded Kilinochchi has been shot
	dead by the Sinhala occupation forces. The victim, Markandu Kumar
	from Skanthapuram, was a young man with a large family. Sri
	Lankan troops operate a shoot-to-kill policy on Tamils returning
	to collect items from their former homes. There are scores of
	such cases recorded in the past year. 
	
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)