LTTE Headquarters,
                                                Tamil Eelam.
                                                26. March 1997


PRESS RELEASE
NEWS FROM TAMIL EELAM

GIRL RAPED BY P.L.O.T.E. GUNMAN
	A member of the PLOTE organisation has struck again raping a
	Tamil woman in Batticaloa before throwing her clothes all over
	the road. The girl is a worker in a garment factory. In the
	military occupied Tamil teritories today Tamil gunmen belonging
	to the various Tamil groups paid by the government - PLOTE, EPDP,
	TELO, EPRLF and a government-backed splinter group of EROS - are
	causing deep unrest among the population. For a monthly salary,
	they assist the Sri Lankan army in round-ups of entire towns and
	routinely indulge in rapes, torture and extra-judicial killings.
	Members of these organisations are composed of the criminal
	element of Tamil society and are viewed with disgust by the
	general population..
	
	The presence of representatives from these Tamil groups in
	parliament should not confuse international observers about their
	actual political status. They were elected by a tiny minority of
	Tamil votes in areas under strict Sri Lankan military control and
	faced with heavy army intimidation. These Tamil groups' main
	incentive is money. It is naive to imagine that they have any
	standing among the northeast Tamil population.

SRI LANKAN POLICE LAUNCH MORTARS ON GIRLS' SCHOOL
	Sri Lankan police forces at Pesalai (Mannar island) last Monday
	fired mortars at a prominent Roman Catholic girls' school
	seriously wounding a teacher. Witnesses say it was sheer luck
	that none of the girls were injured. The teacher remains in
	hospital. The attack is typical of the cowardly manner in which
	police and army operations are being conducted in the Tamil
	homeland. Tamil colleges are frequently the target of gun-fire
	and shelling by Sri Lanka's military forces.

COL. JAYASURIYA IGNORES CIVILIAN ANXIETIES
	The residents of Batticaloa have complained frequently to colonel
	Nimal Jayasuriya about the escalating extra-judicial killings of
	Tamils by Sri Lanka's armed forces but he has not taken any
	action. Five extra-judicial murders have been recorded this month
	alone in Batticaloa. They are all people who went missing after
	arrest by the army. Seenithamby Koneswaran (28) and Muththiah
	Arul (23) of Thalavayil (Eravur) were arrested by soldiers from
	Senkalady camp two weeks ago. Worried relatives made countless
	enquiries but officials denied the arrest having taken place, as
	has become customary. The decomposed bodies of the two men later
	showed up in Pallaichollai.

TWO MORE TAMILS 'DISAPPEAR' IN JAFFNA PENINSULA
	Two Tamil youths arrested last Wednesday by Sinhala armed forces
	in Vadamaradchy have gone missing.  Vallipuram Manoravi (28) of
	Polikandy and Anthonipillai Davitharan (18) of Kottawathai are
	feared dead after all enquiries made by their parents at the
	Vadamaradchy main army camp have met with denials of the arrests
	ever taking place. The two were arrested during an army round-up
	in Vadamaradchy last week.

BULLET-RIDDEN BODY FOUND ON JAFFNA ROADSIDE
	A Tamil man's body torn apart with gunshot wounds has been handed
	over to Jaffna hospital after being discovered on the
	Chavakachcheri main road. The army had killed the man while in
	custody, dumped his body on the road, then retrieved it on a
	later patrol. This has become the standard practice now among the
	Sri Lankan armed forces and their armed Tamil groups. The body
	has not yet been identified.

MIDNIGHT ROUND-UP ACCOMPANIED BY RANDOM GUN-FIRE
	The Tamil residents of Mannar island (in the northwest) are
	regularly facing midnight round-ups by Sinhala soldiers occupying
	their land. Last Wednesday soldiers opened fire randomly on Tamil
	homes and businesses during the procedure. Even one of PLOTE's
	offices was accidentally damaged by the bullets. The relentless
	firing lasted over half an hour.

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)