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LTTE bans Govt. sports festival in Jaffna
The LTTE has banned the government-sponsored National Peace Sports Festival scheduled for September 30 in Jaffna . The LTTE has conveyed its position to the organisers of the festival and wanted all the coaches sent by the Sports Ministry for training to leave the peninsula. Accordingly they have returned to Colombo.

The LTTE says such festivals can be held by the government only after peace talks are resumed. The LTTE notified seven coaches sent from Colombo for the festival to call off their programme and go back home. Leading netball, basketball and athletics coaches who were sent to Jaffna to train Jaffna sportsmen had held several training camps at schools.

The Government has already spent more than Rs. 15 million mainly for the renovation of the Alfred Duraiappah Stadium and to make preparations for the festival.

However, the sportsmen and women later refused to take part in the training, protesting against the government's failure to restore normalcy in the Jaffna peninsula. The Sunday Times learns that pro-LTTE university students had called over at the Jaffna YMCA where the coaches were staying and informed them that the event should be called off.

The coaches had then left the Beach Inn Hotel in Jaffna and another group of students had called over and reiterated the LTTE position. They said that if the sports festival is allowed before peace talks are resumed it would give the impression to the international community that normalcy had returned.

Meanwhile, members of sports clubs in Jaffna have been called for a meeting with the LTTE on Tuesday. The Sunday Times learns that the LTTE is to send a joint appeal to the government asking that the event be postponed. Last week the LTTE refused to allow gymnasts to practise for the opening ceremony.

The Sunday Times learns that despite the LTTE refusing to grant permission to hold the sports festival, renovation work on the Duraiappah stadium is continuing. Meanwhile, Sports Ministry Secretary N G Punchihewa told The Sunday Times that they had done the groundwork for the festival. "We will monitor the situation for a few days more and then take a decision whether we would go ahead to hold the festival."

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