SRI LANKA’S JOINT OPPOSITION SAYS INDIA SHOULD BE APPOINTED THE ISLAND NATION’S NAVAL MONITOR TO STOP ILLEGAL ACTS OF TIGERS
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
April 27. 05.50 AM:Sri Lanka’s former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar said the most opportune time has come to appoint India and two other countries as naval monitors of Sri Lanka to monitor the illegal activities conducted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the waters around the island nation.
Addressing a press conference of the joint opposition parties to explain the current crisis created by what he described as the most partial attitude of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and its “biased head” retired Major General Tryggve Tellefsen towards the LTTE Kadirgamar, who is also the advisor on Foreign Affairs to the country’s President, Chandrika Kumaratunga said neighboring India should monitor seas to stop the Tamil Tiger rebels smuggling arms constantly in to the country. “The people have lost confidence in the head of the SLMM,” he charged
In one of the harshest criticisms so far aimed at the Norway backed monitoring mission Kadirgamar said the opposition parties would like to express their gravest concern to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission for undermining the sovereignty of Sri Lanka and it should be reminded that the sovereignty of the country was a not a commodity which could be bargained. He charged the head of the SLMM Tellefsen had undermined the sovereignty of Sri Lanka and India by asking the Sri Lankan government to recognize the Sea Tigers and their right to operate in the Sri Lankan waters.
Kadirgamar warned if the SLMM did not change its approach it would certainly be a threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka as well as the country’s neighbor India. He said Sri Lanka couldn’t afford to let a de-facto navy, as it would be a whisker away from the legitimate navy. Lakshman Kadirgamar said it was ridiculous for the SLMM to point an accusing finger at an unknown criminal gang in the attack of the Chinese trawler incident after it declared that there was no evidence about the culprits.
He said time had arrived for the President of Sri Lanka to use her executive powers to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. When a reporter asked whether that meant the President of the country would dissolve the parliament People’s Alliance spokesman Dr. Sarath Amunugama said it was left for the President to decide what her executive powers were just like it was left for the Prime Minister to decide what his powers were.
He categorically stated that the joint opposition of the country did not approve the role played so far in the country’s peace process by Norway and called for a wider national consensus on the subject.
Lakshman Kadirgamar said the LTTE was keeping away from the peace talks as a temporary measure to bring pressure on the Ranil Wickremesinghe government to accept some of their most unjustified demands like the recognition of Sea Tigers , an illegal force and removal of the high security zone in Jaffna.
