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LTTE Political Head puts Tamil concerns to the special envoy

Tamilselvan gave a press briefing after the long meeting. He explained to the press the concerns of the LTTE which was put before the special envoy. Excerpts from the press briefing about what was put before the special envoy are as follows.

“Tamil civilians are murdered and disappeared at an alarming rate. GoSL has started to impose economic blockade on areas under our administration. Petrol is restricted. Cement and iron rods used to building reinforcement is banned. This is effectively a war situation that is being forced on the Tamil people by the GoSL.”

“International community’s actions of taking only the views of GoSL into account will be viewed by the Tamil people and the LTTE as biased. It will marginalize and weaken the peace process”.

“We have told the special envoy that Norway as the facilitator has a responsibility to tell the international community the justice on the Tamil side. GoSL can use its status as a government and the relationships it can develop through this to spread its views. Tamil people and the LTTE entered the peace process trusting that the international community will be impartial and accept the two sides as equal. That is how the international community behaved when they initially became involved in the peace process. If the international community moves from this initial stand, we will consider it to be a step to disturb the peace efforts. As such, the move by the European Union to ban LTTE will also disturb the peace process.”

“International community is making a lot of statements when someone is killed in Sri Lanka. Yet when babies are killed in our homeland international community is keeping quiet. When Sri Lankan commander Sarath Fonseka was injured international community made a lot of noise. But when our military leader Ramanan was killed there was silence. We have told the special envoy to tell the international community that just like the Sinhala people love their leaders Tamil people also love their leaders. International community’s silence over the murders of our leaders like Kousalyan, ChandrNehru, Joseph Pararajasingam, Vigneswaran, and Ramanan will make the Tamil people loose confidence in the impartiality of the international community and weaken the peace process.”

“We are being pressured to attend the second Geneva talks. We have told them that the alarming rate of civilian killing must stop and our central committee must meet before Geneva talks can take place. For this our transport arrangements that have been blocked must be rectified”

Tamilselvan also said that LTTE has been asked to attend a meeting in Oslo to discuss the operations of the SLMM and that the LTTE leadership is considering the request and an announcement will be made in a few days.

Jon Hanssen-Bauer also visited the NESOHR (North East Secretariat On Human Rights) and TRO (Tamil Rehabilitation Organization) during his visit.

27 May 2006

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