Sri Lanka News, update throughout the day....

---

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SIGNATURES TO DEMERGE TWO PROVINCES

photo:Tamilnet

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

July 15.09.50 PM:The Sinhala Sanvidhanaya of the Eastern Province has started a signature campaign in the Eastern Province to appeal to the President Chandrika Kumaratunga to demerge the Eastern and Northern Provinces;

The Venerable Dehiowita Piyatissa Thera, the President of the organization started the campaign by signing his own name to the petition.

The organization said the two provinces were temporarily merged under the Indo-Lanka agreement of 1987 using emergency regulations. Since the emergency laws were no longer valid the merger was no longer valid too, the organization said. . The signature campaign would be soon extended to the Batticaloa and Ampara Districts also.

The organizers expected to collect 100,000 signatures from the Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslims of the Eastern Province and request the President, Prime Minister and leaders of all political parties to de-merge the two provinces and establish two provincial councils for the two areas, the organizers said.

(15/07/03 go2lanka.com)