LTTE Headquarters,
                                                Tamil Eelam.
                                                26. June 1997

PRESS RELEASE 
NEWS FROM TAMIL EELAM
                                           
FAMINE UNDERWAY AS FOOD IS KEPT FROM THOUSANDS
	With numbers of Tamil displaced rising daily the
	government-imposed food shortage in Vanni is now at its most
	acute. Only 5099 families have been provided for with quantities
	that cannot last beyond two weeks. Thousands more displaced
	persons confined to "welfare centres" and sprawled under trees in
	the Vanni jungles are quite literally facing famine. Such parts
	of Vanni are scenes of pandemonium, with young children crying
	for food and huge numbers of people debilitated with hunger.
	
	None of the frantic messages sent to the government's
	Commissioner for Essential Services have been answered. This
	confirms beyond doubt that this is a deliberately engineered food
	shortage. The two-year ban on journalists to the Vanni has
	encouraged the Sri Lankan government to embark on this
	food-denying policy with a feeling that they can get away with it
	indefinitely. "Jaya Sikuru"'s failure has also contributed to the
	decision to continue starving the Tamil people of Vanni.
	
FRUSTRATED TROOPS RESUME INDISCRIMINATE FIRING ON TOWNS
	With "Jaya Sikuru" stopped in its tracks yesterday Sri Lankan
	forces reacted with non-stop air assaults on Puliyankulam town
	and surrounding areas. The barrage began yesterday night and went
	on till this morning. Artillery shells were also directed towards
	Puliyankulam from army positions at Omanthai during the same
	hours.
	
CONSENSUS ON MASS DEMO FOR WEDNESDAY
	A unanimous decision was reached in a meeting of NGO leaders,
	school teachers, students, civic leaders and other citizens to
	stage a mass anti-government demonstration next Wednesday in
	Puthukudiyiruppu. It was decided at the meeting - held in Sri
	Subramania school - that it was an urgent necessity to highlight
	the unprecedented suffering being experienced by the Tamil people
	at this time. The participants agreed that Sinhala army
	atrocities against Tamil civilians and the Vanni food-siege would
	be the focus of the protest.
	
SCHOOL BOOKS DENIED TO TAMIL CHILDREN
	Sri Lanka's education department has kept back 60% of the school
	books it is obliged to give to Tamil school children in
	Mullaitivu. Even the small amount that has arrived has come half
	a year too late, rendering the scheme virtually meaningless.
	Headmasters and teachers are in a quandary about how to
	distribute the meagre supply among the hard-done children. The
	Sri Lankan government, while professing to be ethnically-neutral,
	routinely withholds items - even those donated by international
	agencies - from the Tamil people.
	
TAMIL EELAM HONOURS ITS DEAD SOLDIERS
	Three LTTE fighters who died in the successful Thandikulam attack
	were honoured in Tamil Eelam yesterday. Huge portraits of Major
	Nithan, Major Yalaini and Capt. Sathuriyan were carried in a
	procession through the streets of Puthukudiyiruppu. A record
	crowd was in attendance, of teachers, students, public officials,
	businessmen and the general public.

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)