Point Pedro students protest army presence
Hundreds of students from two high schools in Point Pedro
Thursday protested demanding the immediate removal of Sri
Lanka Army camps from their schools' premises. The
demonstration, which started at 9 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m.,
was held in front of the Hartley College, but students from
the nearby Vadamaradchi Methodist Girls' College also joined
in, sources said.
The Sri Lanka Army has been occupying the school's premises
since 1997. The Students and teachers say that schooling is
disrupted by the soldiers' presence. Students and teachers
have to enter and leave through checkpoints the army has set
up at the entrances of these schools.
At the end of the protest, the Principal of Hartley College
handed over a memorandum to the head of the Sri Lanka
Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in Jaffna appealing for immediate
steps to remove the army camps from the schools premises. A
copy of the memorandum was sent to Sri Lanka's Prime
Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Under the ceasefire agreement between Sri Lankan government
and the Liberation Tigers which came into effect on February
23, SLA troops should have begun withdrawing from schools,
places of worship and other public spaces and private homes
immediately, and completed the relocation within 160 days.
However, 90 days since the truce began, most of these
positions are still being occupied by the SLA.
Last Monday, civil administration officials who met military
commanders in Jaffna to discuss moving soldiers out of
school premises were told that troops would not be moving
out of 32 schools "for the foreseeable future."
Courtesy: TamilNet, May 23, 2002 11:39 GMT
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