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PERTURBED BY THE MILITARIZATION OF THE MUSLIM YOUTH LTTE LEADER SAYS SEPARATE ADMINISTRATIVE MUSLIM UNIT UNNECESSARY By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles March 03, 09:47 AM:Very much perturbed by the Eastern Province’s Muslim youth receiving arms and combat training the military leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of the Eastern Province, Ramesh said Muslims requesting a separate administrative unit for them in the Eastern Province was quite unnecessary. The LTTE military leader also warned Muslims by telling them that arming the Muslim youth could hurt the whole Muslim community in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. The LTTE in the past chased out all Muslims from the Jaffna peninsula in a blatant act of ethnic cleansing by an order of the LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. The Muslims of the Eastern Province have been allegedly under the receiving end of the Tamil terrorist group and at the last LTTE –Muslim ethnic clash lost more than 25 people at the hands of the military might of the Tamil rebel group. LTTE’s Eastern military leader Ramesh expressed the ideas addressing a seminar organized by a media organization of the Eastern province held at the Devanayagam Hall, Batticaloa. Ramesh said a separate administrative unit for the Muslims was quite unnecessary since all security would be provided under a Tamil unit to all the Muslims too. Ramesh alleged that certain Muslim political leaders of the area were training the Muslim armed units and he severely warned the Muslims that because of those military units the whole Muslim community could get hurt. Therefore, he appealed to Muslim intellectuals to intervene and put a stop to the militarization of the Muslim youth. Meanwhile , the leader of the Sri lanka Muslim Congress said that the LTTE was unable to keep their promises to the Muslims in the past. Commenting on the fresh promises that Muslim security would be provided under a Tamil administration the leader of the Muslim Congress Rauff Hakeem said their reassurances about the protection of the Muslims are yet to be realized in true action Hakeem said that even on many earlier occasions the LTTE was promising Muslims their protection but unfortunately nothing came out of it. He said the Muslim problem became so serious because of those acts of the LTTE. He said he hoped that would not be repeated in the future. Immediately after the formation of the Ranil Wickremesinghe government, Minister Rauf Hakeem traveled to Wanni and signed an agreement under the separatist Tiger Flag accepting Prabhakaran as the sole leader of the Tamils and Prabhakaran accepting Hakeem as the sole leader of the Muslims. When disputes later arose in the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, the LTTE chief negotiator Anton Balasingham publicly ridiculed Hakeem that he should before anything else put his house in order. Balasingham was referring to the court case where Hakeem’s leadership of the Muslim Congress was challenged. Anyway, o3/03 go2lanka.com) |