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LTTE threat brings civilian life in Jaffna to a halt

Civil administration in Sri Lanka's embattled northern Jaffna peninsula is slowly grinding to a halt under a campaign of systematic disruption by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, residents have said.

They said all the four courts in the peninsula had suspended functioning from noon on Tuesday following a threat by the rebels.

The magistrates' courts of Jaffna, Mallakam, Point Pedro and Chavakacheri were closed until further notice after they received letters from the rebels, ordering them to suspend all hearings or face dire consequences.

The courts functioned from hired houses and the trials were held in the magistrates' chamber till now. Only lawyers and litigants were allowed into the court premises due to security reasons, the residents added.

Meanwhile, some 1,800 passengers, stranded in Jaffna following the suspension of civilian flights to the peninsula, will now have to wait at least two weeks before they can hope to avail of any transport to Colombo, they said.

They said hundreds of passengers were scheduled to leave by a cargo vessel, which had finished unloading at the Point Pedro port in the peninsula, yesterday.

But the owners told the passengers that unless the government insured all the passengers, they could not take the risk of transporting them, the residents said, adding that the authorities were now arranging to send them by another cargo vessel due to leave in about two weeks.

Civilian flight to Jaffna were suspended after an aircraft with 48 passengers and seven crew members disappeared shortly after it took off from Palali for Jaffna on September 29.

The plane is widely believed to have been shot down by the LTTE, though no one has claimed responsibility for it nor its debris been found.

Political sources in Jaffna said the chairmen and members of all the 17 local government bodies in the peninsula had written to the heads of diplomatic missions in Colombo, urging them to put pressure on the LTTE not to interfere in their functioning.

The letters had been sent under the name of ''people on the verge of death threat,'' they said.

UNI

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