LTTE TELLS ISLAND NEWSPAPER THAT THEY BLOCKED MAVIL ARU IRRIGATION CHANNEL TO PROTEST EUROPEAN UNION BAN AGAINST THEM
(By Walter Jayawardhana)
Los Angeles:-The Sri Lanka English daily, Island quoted a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spokes man as saying that they closed the Mavil Aru irrigation channel depriving 35,000 acres of farmland water to protest against the ban against them as a terrorist group by the Eruopean Union.
The newspaper in their front page lead said the LTTE spokesman told their newspaper, "We closed the Mavil Aru anicut to show our disapproval of the European Union ban" Anicut is a sluice gate of an irrigation channel.
The LTTE was so far telling that the government’s failure to build water towers for drinking purposes in the LTTE occupied areas was a major cause for them to close the Mavil Aru irrigation channel depriving water for about 15,000 farmers in Seruwila area.
The newspaper said, a new spokesman for the LTTE called Ilancheliyan has changed that stance and told them that it was done as a protest against the European Union who listed them as a terrorist organization. The banning of the European Union has prevented the LTTE to receive funds collected from the Tamil Diaspora to work their military machine against the Sri Lanka government. They also ordered European Union members to leave the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), that monitors a troubled ceasefire between the terrorist group and the government of Sri Lanka.
Under intimidation so far, Denmark and Finland have decided to withdraw their representatives from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission.
