26th November 2000

By Alia

Peacemaker strikes gold

Its not only at the Olympics that one wins Gold. That is of course for coming first in any of the events.

Norwegian peace broker, Erik Solheim, also won Gold during his first visit to Wanni early this month.

It came in the form of a present given to him by LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

It was a gold sovereign with the Eelam logo embossed on it.

As the saying goes, blessed are the peace makers.

Colonel hauled up

An Army Court of In quiry is to try a colonel who allegedly used six soldiers to construct his new house.

The move, insiders say, follows the findings of a Court of Inquiry. They say Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Janaka Perera, is to chair the Court.

On camera operation

A video tape and camera seized from a Tiger guerrilla involved in the October 20 attack on Naval vessels in the Trincomalee harbour has bared some interesting details.

The tape, meant to be part of propaganda footage under preparation, shows how the LTTE had embarked on its efforts to launch the attack on the Trincomalee harbour.

The mortar shells which were fired into the harbour area from Marble beach, an area a few hundred metres outside the Army's "Tankodrome," where troops are trained in tank warfare, were smuggled in days ahead. They remained buried until the attacking cadres unearthed them.

How did the mortars arrive at the location past the many check-points in the town and past China Bay ?

They were concealed in bullock carts which transported innocuous items.

Gold digger

Detectives are to re-open a probe into the case of a one time decorated soldier allegedly involved in a gold theft.

Insiders say the gold belonging to a bank went missing in an operational area after events that followed a guerrilla attack.

They say the investigations at that time were stalled due to unexplained reasons. The renewed probe, they say, is intended to ascertain how the gold worth millions went missing.

Diplomatic distributor

A diplomatic mission in Colombo, which represents a country that repeatedly asserts its commitment to peace, has become a distributor to an LTTE publication – Anton Balasingham's book titled "Politics of Duplicity."

Many members of the Colombo based diplomatic community received their complimentary copies of the book, priced in London at ten sterling pounds, just free.

Rajpal Abeynayake's Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents