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THE JVP IN A MAMMOTH RALLY WARNS NOT TO ALLOW ANY KIND OF INTERIM ADMINISTRATION FOR THE TIGERS, FURTHER ERODING THE CONSTITUTION

Nearly 50,000 people took to the streets June 6,2003 to protest against the LTTE’s interim government proposal, under the banner of the JVP. The Tamil Net published this photograph

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles:
june 07, 11:40 AM: In a mammoth protest demonstration that walked from Colombo’s Fort Railway station to the Lipton Circle in the central city, Sri Lanka’s second largest Opposition party , the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna demanded Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe not to erode Sri Lanka’s constitution further by allowing the Tiger terrorists of any kind of interim administration.

It reminded the Prime Minister Wickremesinghe that the voters of Sri Lanka did not give him a mandate to contravene the constitution of Sri Lanka or over ride the powers of the executive President of the country.

The Information Secretary of the party, Wimal Weerawansa, addressing the mammoth crowd of protesters, estimated to be more than 50,000, said that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had pushed the country to the brink of separation for the gains of his personal political fortunes.

Wimal Weerawansa reminded that it was his party that revealed to the people of the country about the secret pact between the LTTE and the JVP before the general elections of 2001 . Since then the JVP made its utmost national duty to keep the people informed as far as possible about the implementation of the pact. The UNF was still trying to implement the secret pact, christened Ali-Koti Givisuma, Weerawansa charged. He said the LTTE had demanded Ranil Wickremesinghe government to accept their interim government to fulfill Ranil’s earlier promises made to the LTTE. The people had a right to know what were those promises, the JVP Information Secretary said.

Reminding the people that Ranil Wickremesinghe had done his utmost to keep the LTTE happy since the advent of his UNF government Weerawansa said it had allowed the terrorist group to kidnap innocent Tamil youth from their homes and the schools and the government had done nothing against that to stop it. It had allowed the terrorist group to extort people in the way of arbitrary illegal taxes. The UNF cabinet Minister Periyasamay Chandrasekheran had allowed even the young people of the tea plantations to be recruited as the armed cadres of the LTTE, Weerawansa charged. He said the UNF government ordered the country’s Navy to patiently watch doing nothing while the LTTE was freely smuggling in shiploads of arms and ammunition in to the country piling them up definitely for a war

In an earlier letter sent to the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe JVP’s General Secretary Tilvin Silva said he should stop allowing the LTTE erode Sri Lanka’s constitution any further.

The letter further said , “ The MOU or the so called cease fire agreement to which you and Velupillai Prabhakaran put your signatures to on February 22 2002 and is being implemented up to this day had been kept as a secret from the people of Sri Lanka, the parliament and the head of state of the nation until the very day it was signed by both parties.

“Even for that reason alone, the pact could be called a fraudulent one. From the time it was signed , it has been no secret to the people, that up to this day your government has knowingly allowed the State of Sri Lanka to dissolve and ruin itself and allowed an anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, racist Tamil Eelam Eelam to be carved out of the land of Sri Lanka

“The people of Sri Lanka never gave your government a mandate to contravene the constitution of the nation or to over ride the powers of the elected executive President of the nation. We and all intelligent citizens firmly believe that your government has contravened the constitution of the country

“Even you, now admit the so called cease fire agreement has many shortcomings. But unfortunately, you have failed to describe the defects you have admitted. You have also failed to describe vocally or by writing how to rectify those shortcomings and how to stop the damage caused by those defects. You have also failed to apologize to the people for those faults by your short sightedness in rushing to sign such an agreement. We would also like to draw your attention to the question of utmost importance whether a person who has put his signature to a document which so obviously has so many defects but yet is so important to the very future of the existence of this nation is fit hold the position of the Prime Minister of the very nation he endangered

“Entrapping you in the very agreement you signed the Tiger terrorists since February 22 2002 have been capable of gaining many victories so far. Your government has knowingly allowed the LTTE to achieve political and military victories during this short time of 16 months that they were not capable of winning during a period of 30 years.

“Since February 22 2002 the LTTE has been able to run a parallel government in the North and the East and now is engaged in a process in extorting from you the last ingredients necessary to establish a separate state.

“If you would not let them have the interim government as you have promised during the previous meetings by throwing the Sri Lanka constitution and democracy to the trash can they are now threatening to boycott the so called peace negotiations.

We may recall that during 1987 under the emergency regulations that a UNP government merged the Northern and Eastern Provinces temporarily and formed a Provincial Council. During the same party regime in 1989-90 the government donated a large haul of arms, money, cement to erect military bunkers, vehicles etc. Using the term temporary the same UNP is now planning to grant an interim government to the LTTE.

“You must strongly remember that you have not received any mandate at all from the people of Sri Lanka to give over even an inch of land, or even a single citizen to the LTTE, any other organization joining with you or any dictator to be ruled temporarily or otherwise openly or secretly.

“ We remind you of that very strongly in the name of all lawful, just, right thinking democratic masses of Sinhalese Tamil and Muslim communities of this beautiful nation of Sri Lanka.

(07/06/03 go2lanka.com)