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TAMIL TIGERS REFUSE TO DISARM THEMSELVES AS LAID DOWN BY SARATH FONSEKA IF HIGH SECURITY ZONES WERE TO BE WITHDRAWN
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam refused to disarm themselves as laid down by Major General Sarath Fonseka, the commanding officer of the Sri Lankan security forces in Jaffna as condition to withdraw High Security Zones. Commander Sarath Fonseka’ S conditions that the arms of the LTTE should be handed over to the government, the LTTE’s heavy arms units of artillery and mortar sections should be dissolved and the army should have the authority of entering the area to inspect private property or houses should be allowed were rejected by the leader of the Tamil Tigers’political section, S. Thamilselvan at Kilinochchi, December 23. The Tamil rebel leader pointed out that there was still “fear and suspicion” on their side to implement such a plan. But still refusing to give up its original proposal that gave rise to these conditions Thamilselvan said the anger of the Tamil people who were unable to go and settle down in their own natural home land as an emotive condition which would not be very easy to control. In the past such public agitations were organized by the LTTE front organizations. Clearly distinguishing the Sri Lanka Army that laid down these conditions and the more liberal Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Thamilselvan said the Sinhalese people gave a very powerful mandate to the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe to take any step appropriate to restore peace in the country. Thamilselvan said the Tamil people expected the Prime Minister to have enough power to remove the obstacles laid by the Sri Lanka army to peace indicating they expected Ranil Wickremesinghe to overrule the conditions laid by the Sri Lanka army and relax the high security zones of Jaffna. He also charged the army was emphasizing such war like policies for its own benefit. The long-drawn campaign of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to get rid of the high security zones in Jaffna Peninsula took a new turn when LTTE’s Eastern Commander Karuna announced that the group would boycott the de-escalation and normalization sub-committee meetings between them and the government if a plan was not submitted to the army commander by the Northern Command of the army before December 21 enabling the resettlement of refugees in high security zones. . LTTE’s frustrations heightened when the Northern Commander of the Army Major General Sarath Fonseka was totally opposed to any relaxation of the high security zones of the Jaffna peninsula at earlier meetings under current conditions. LTTE’s chief negotiator Anton Balasingham openly expressed the frustrations of the terrorist group about the high security zones during Oslo sessions when he said that the Northern Commander Major General Sarath Fonseka was vehemently opposed of removing the high security zones of the Jaffna peninsula. The LTTE claimed that Jaffna’s war refugees should be resettled in the high security zones maintained by the Sri Lanka Army and other security forces in Jaffna. Citing Fonseka as a major obstacle to removing the high security zones in the peninsula the terrorist group was bringing pressure on the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration to remove him from his position. Issuing a statement to the press after a seven hour long meeting of the sub-committee of de-escalation and normalization the chief representative of the LTTE delegation Karuna, the terrorist group’s Eastern Commander, said that unless a plan to relax the high security zone and resettle war refugees was not submitted to the sub-committee before December 21, the LTTE saw no useful purpose in participating in the sub-committee meetings. But Fonseka did produce a plan to relax the High Security Zone allowing “refugees” to be resettled before the deadline but laid down conditions to be fulfilled by the terrorist group in order to implement it. Fonseka’ S proposals were submitted to the LTTE through the Norway led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. (EOM) (25/12/02 go2lanka.com) |