SRILANKA’S OPPOSITION CALLS THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE LTTE FROM TALKS A RUSE AND DEMANDS AN EMERGENCY DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
April 23. 07.35 PM:Sri Lanka’s Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa demanded an emergency debate in the parliament to discuss the urgent security concerns of the country from the Speaker of the Parliament Joseph Michel Perera and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
In two letters addressed to them Rajapaksa said that he was demanding an emergency debate in the parliament to discuss the urgent security concerns of the country arising out of the temporary withdrawal of the terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from the peace negotiations it was holding with the government.
Leader of Sri Lanka’s official opposition in the parliament, Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a statement the LTTE was withdrawing temporary from the peace discussions only to bring tremendous pressure on the government to accept some of their demands, which were otherwise difficult for them to make anybody to accept.
For instance, he said the recognition of the Sea Tigers and providing exclusive sea routes for them to have independent sea transport was one such concept the LTTE was forcing the government to accept.
He said although the LTTE was using the non-invitation to them to participate in the Washington DC talks as a cause for them to boycott the aid donor talks in June it was only a ruse. The real cause was that the LTTE wanted the government to accept controversial demands like that of the legal recognition of the Sea Tigers, Rajapaksa said.
Although, they were not withdrawing from the entire peace talks, the Leader of the Opposition predicted, it was also a warning for the things that might come in the future. All these, justified the opposition contention that the LTTE would someday withdraw from the negotiating table when the time was opportune for them to do so, he argued.
Rajapaksa said, this was a direct result of the way the government was conducting business with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam so far, and it was time up for the government to conduct the way the opposition and the President was proposing to have business with the terrorist group, to avoid such tricky situations.
Meanwhile Presidential spokesman Janadasa Peiris said that President Chandrika Kumaratunga has so far called three rounds of talks to discuss the security concerns of the country and one of them was with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe himself. He said the discussion with the Prime Minister was earlier scheduled to discuss the Muttur incidents but the topic of the LTTE withdrawal was also taken up. He said the President has expressed her grave concern about the LTTE ‘s unilateral announcement about the withdrawal from the peace talks.
Janadasa Peiris said, the President also held a security council meeting in which Minister of Defense, Thilak Marapane also participated and ordered them to be prepared for any situation arising out of the withdrawal. As the commander in chief she also discussed the situation with the chiefs of the Army, Navy and the Air force and also with the Inspector General of Police in a separate meeting.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s second largest opposition group, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in a separate request demanded earlier a special debate in parliament to discuss the threat to the country by a proposal by the new Norwegian head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, retired Major General Tryggve Tellefsen that the LTTE should be allocated a separate sea zone for them to operate and do naval exercises and recognize the sea tigers as a separate naval force.
The JVP said this was a vicious plan hatched by the imperialists to destabilize the South Asian region and would threaten not only the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country but also India and other states in the Indian Ocean.
The JVP said it was the duty of the President and other democratic forces to come forward to defeat this imperialist plan that would be implemented by the Ranil Wickremesinghe government and work vigorously to drive them out of power.
