LTTE Headquarters,
                                                Tamil Eelam.
                                                12. July 1997

PRESS RELEASE 
NEWS FROM TAMIL EELAM
                                           
EMERGENCY APPEAL TO STAVE OFF FAMINE
	The political department of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
	(LTTE) urgently appeals to all government- and non-government
	agencies in Vanni to help defeat the famine engineered by the
	Government of Sri Lanka. Totally blocked off from the outside
	world, the situation is too desperate to ignore any longer. The
	effects of being stranded without medicine and food for such a
	long periods are taking their toll on the men, women and children
	here, who are depleted and hungry. They have been demonstrating
	in their thousands. Emergency humanitarian work is necessary at
	this juncture. NGOs should not wait for conditions similar to
	Zaire or Ethiopia before acting. The current food shortage is
	entirely man-made: the Sinhala military is keeping Tamils away
	from food supplies. The military blocks all entry-points to Vanni
	while creating conditions within the Vanni (i.e., homelessness,
	insecurity) such that it is impossible to produce food there.
	Government claims of food being "sent" are entirely baseless.
	Food stocks are dwindling rapidly with no fresh stocks available.
	
"TAMILS HAVE GOOD REASON TO FIGHT" - NORTH KOREAN CAPTAIN
	The North Korean captain of the Sri Lankan-hired ship which was
	recently intercepted by LTTE forces off the northeastern coast of
	Sri Lanka says he is astonished at the levels of suffering he
	witnessed in Vanni. MV Moranghong's skipper said he was
	distressed at the way Tamils have been made homeless,
	disease-ridden and rendered starving by the government of Sri
	Lanka. Describing Sri Lanka's government as "merciless" he said
	he now understood why Tamils were fighting against it. "All these
	years I was under the impression that only one race lived in Sri
	Lanka," he said, "but it is clear that there are two races of
	people. The government is obviously in the hands of one race,
	which is attacking the other race." He continued: "I wish the
	Tamil people well. They must establish their own country and
	government to live peacefully. They have no alternative." This
	independent witness's comments - a rare third party insight into
	the ground situation - should open the eyes of those who have
	swallowed Sri Lanka's propaganda. His words also confirm the
	current state of the starving Vanni population, whose plight the
	LTTE has been emphasising for many months.
	
WOMEN VACATE HOUSES TO AVOID SEXUAL ABUSE BY ARMY
	Tamil women in Batticaloa are leaving their homes at night to
	avoid sexual abuse from Sri Lanka's Sinhala army. Soldiers have a
	habit of knocking on doors and making "identity checks" on young
	women which end up in sexual ordeals for the women concerned. Sri
	Lanka's Thuriyady army camp is notorious for this sort of
	activity carried out nightly against the residents of Kravelkuli,
	Chettikudiyiruppu and Kiran. Many Tamil women from here have
	begun moving to safer locations at night to avoid harassment.
	
TRAVELLERS WITH MEDICINES BEATEN BY ARMY
	Tamil travellers carrying small items of  medicine across the
	army barrier at Uyilankulam (Mannar) are being soundly beaten by
	Sinhala soldiers. The medicines - even headache tablets - are
	invariably confiscated and then the carriers are attacked.
	
90,000 HOUSES DESTROYED BY MILITARY ACTION IN BATTICALOA
	Over the years an estimated 90,000 Tamil homes have been
	demolished by Sri Lanka's Sinhala military forces. Of these, some
	70,000 home-owners have not been compensated in any way. Since
	1995, Batticaloa's Tamil residents have received no state
	allocations to restore their dwellings. What is more, 620
	civilians killed by military assaults in Batticaloa, 300 injured
	and 18,000 made jobless due to army action have not been
	compensated. Even bank loans formerly given to people to help
	rebuild their homes and lives have been ordered by the
	Chandrika-government to be stopped.
	
3 TAMILS ARRESTED IN COLOMBO HOSPITAL, HELD WITHOUT CHARGE
	Batticaloa's Grama Sevaka (local government official) V.
	Linganathan and his wife were both arrested in a Colombo hospital
	where the lady was undergoing treatment for an eye condition.
	Their girl helper was also arrested. Sinhala police have since
	been accused of torturing the girl helper in order to extract a
	confession. None of the three have been charged but under Sri
	Lanka's emergency regulations they can be held in jail for over a
	year without being charged. Two leading trade unions have
	meanwhile asked that the three persons be released. While this is
	a relatively high-profile incident, there are hundreds of Tamil
	men and women languishing in Colombo's jails whose cases will not
	gain publicity; they will not get a fair hearing and are subject
	to continual ill-treatment while in prison.
	
DEADLY "RAZICK" GROUP SLAYS ANOTHER TAMIL STUDENT
	The Sri Lankan army-hired "Razick" group has carried out another
	slaying in Batticaloa. Members of the terror-squad - which is a
	splinter-group of the EPRLF - killed Tamil civilian Palipody
	Santhiramoorthy (a student of Oorani Saraswathy school) after
	taking him for "questioning". The brutal murder was totally
	unprovoked and is characteristic of the kind of groups Sri Lanka
	pays to carry out its campaign of intimidation against ordinary
	Tamils.

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)