RANIL’S CABINET MINISTER P. CHANDRASEKARAN SUPPORTS LTTE AND WANTS ARMY REMOVED FROM HIGH SECURITY ZONES IN NORTH & EAS
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
October 27, 06.30 PM: Ranil Wickremesinghe’s cabinet minister Periyasamy Chandrasekaran, after a meeting with LTTE Political leader S.P. Thamilselvan said he agreed as a state minister with the LTTE that government troops should be removed from the high security zones in the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka
He said the LTTE could give up arms only when the country was reverted back to the position that existed before the rebels were armed.
He said to normalize the situation the government troops should be withdrawn from the two provinces. He did not explain whether that was the policy of the Ranil Wickremesinghe government or the policy of the Upcountry People’s Front of which he is the leader
He said if the LTTE was able to give up the demand for a separate state called Eelam the government should be able to give up their insistence of keeping the security forces in the high security zones of Northern and Eastern Provinces.
P. Chandrasekaran did not say when the LTTE gave up the demand for a separate state. The Sandeshaya, the allegedly pro-LTTE Sinhalese language radio program of the BBC, was interviewing him.
The Sunday Leader, a newspaper close the LTTE said the rebel group in its latest demands, prepared by the group’s constitutional and legal experts, wanted a new national flag and national anthem for the two provinces of the East and the North when it would be given an interim administration.
The Tamil group’s demand also included total power over land, foreign grants, investment and police powers and it refused to decommission its armed forces the Sunday leader said.
The much pampered proposals, as a path to peace by varied foreign NGO’s also said the peace talks would continue only when the Ranil Wickremesinghe government agreed to these demands.
The independent Island newspaper editorially commenting on the proposals said, “These proposals go beyond the reinventing of the Sri Lankan state. It is for the creation of another two states.” Despite, the claim that the LTTE gave up their demand for a separate state the newspaper pointed out through the interim government proposals it was in fact trying to achieve a separate state
