The Cease Fire Agreement should be replaced with a new one; V.Anandasangaree President – T.U.L.F
Monday, August 22nd, 2005Courtesy:Daily Mirror
With the excalation of violence, especially increase in suicide attacks in a number of countries, the need has come for the International Community to get together to eradicate terrorism in the whole world. Following the bomb blast in London on 7th July, I addressed two letters to the British Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Tony Blair urging him to go all out, even beyond his territorial limits, to see to the security and safety of all the people, by soliciting the support of the International Community. I chose the British Prime Minister to make this request because in my view although the number of casualities are over a hundred times more , in the American tragedy of September 11th, than the number of causalities in the London bomb –blast, the fear and terror caused by these two incidents are almost the same.
In Sri Lanka the suicide attacks of the L.T.T.E. had taken hundreds of lives including those of the Head of the State, Presidential Candidates, high ranking officers of the Army, Navy and Police and a number of Politicians, academics and civilians. Apart from this we have also lost over sixty-five thousand people, mostly non-combatant men, women and children. Several thousand had been widowed and orphaned and a few thousand had lost their limbs. Land – mine casualities are a few thousand and damage to property amounts to billions.
Although there is a lull now, following the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) by the Sri Lankan Government with the L.T.T.E, hardly one day passes without at least one political opponent or an officer of the intelligence unit, getting killed. In an accidental shooting incident a civilian was killed by a soldier, last week, and a Superintendent of police went to inquire into that incident. The officer who was asked to come un-armed and without body-guards was taken to a house under the pretext of having a discussion with the L.T.T.E.. The hacked body of the officer was later found, one kilo-meter away. The blame was put on a mob but everyone knows that the L.T.T.E. had killed him and threw the body away.
I am one born and bred in Jaffna and had been in Politics for about fifty years. I was a Member of Parliament for over 17 years and the Leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front, a Moderate Tamil Political Party that had lost a number of its leaders to the L.T.T.E.’s bullets. I know the people whom I represented. There had never been a single murder, so brutal as this in Jaffna, that can be cited as one, parallel to this. The most unfortunate thing is that the officer had no involvement directly or indirectly in this civilian’s murder. The victim comes from a very poor family that deserves sympathy and this incident cannot be considered as a pre-planned one.
The L.T.T.E encouraged by the freedom they enjoyed during the past 3 1/2 years since the C.F.A. was signed had been taking the law into their hands and doing everything they wanted. It appears as if the Leader of the L.T.T.E. has lost control of his cadre. They create troubles and take cover behind the ordinary civilians, who are generally innocent and god -fearing.
This incident took place in an area that had been liberated by the Government from the L.T.T.E. and is supposed to be under the control of the Government Forces. The L.T.T.E. was allowed to get into these areas under a provision in the C.F.A., to do only political work and not to harass or kill people. Today they are virtually controlling both the Government held areas and the areas held by them where people are living like slaves, with no guts to defy their orders. The area behind their Iron Curtain, is out of bounds for every one, including the facilitators. In view of the serious CFA violations exceeding 2500 in number, the present CFA should be replaced with a new one.
The time has now come for the International Community to cry halt to the atrocities of the L.T.T.E. which should now agree to release all the prisoners in their custody, stop conscriptions, extortions, killing of rival groups and to close down their torture camps, dark room detention camps, and also allow democracy to prevail in all areas under their control.
The L.T.T.E. cadre and it’s front organizations should be told by the concerned authorities in each country that collecting funds for the L.T.T.E. under threat, interference in the management of Hindu Temples and weekend Tamil Schools by the Tamils also amount to serious violation of the Democratic rights of the Tamils, who had sought asylum in the respective countries.
The L.T.T.E. must agree or must be compelled to agree by the united action of the International Community to lay down their arms and accept Federalism as a solusion to end the country’s ethnic problem. It is no more a secret that it was the L.T.T.E. that revived suicide bombing and it is from them that the other terrorist organisations had learnt the tactics. History had proved that those who volunteered as suicide bombers are children from poor families with large responsibilities and none from the families of the promoters of suicide attacks.
Compulsion by United Action is the only option now left to solve problems and not by submitting to the threats of the terrorist groups.
I strongly urge that you and your country should play a major role in the eradication of Terrorism from the universe and also in finding reasonable solutions for the problems that some think can be solved only by terrorism.
The brutal assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar on 12.08.05 justifies my stand.
With utmost regards.
Yours sincerely,
V.Anandasangaree
President – T.U.L.F
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Aug 20, Colombo: The next in-line in the LTTE’s assassination list, Leader of TULF, V. Anandasangaree while claiming that LTTE was virtually controlling both the government areas and its own territory urged the international community to play a major role in the eradication of terrorism and refuse to submit to the threats of terrorist groups.