Senior Advisor to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse and a veteran Sinhalese politician, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, said that the government has to get the support of the people in the South of the country to solve the problems of the Tamils, in response to questions raised by the members of Jaffna Traders’ Association (JTA) in a meeting held Saturday evening in the JTA building in Jaffna. The members had asked as to why it was not possible to carry out the Supreme Court directive to resettle the IDPs from Valikaamam North in their own places now occupied by Sri Lanka Army while the Supreme Court order to demerge Northern and Eastern provinces had been executed overnight.
It has become customary for all the politicians from the South when they come to Jaffna to say that they will work to find a solution for the Tamil ethnic issue but in reality their promises are empty, JTA members said in the meeting.
Every agreement entered into claiming to solve the Tamil issue, including Banda-Chelva pact, Dudley-Chelva pact, Indo-Sri Lanka agreement and Chandrika’s proposals had been rejected and cast off by the majority Sinhalese led regimes in the past, they added.
There is no meaning in saying that a solution will be found for the Tamil issue while so many other urgent problems of the Tamils are disregarded by the government.
The Vanni people who are interned in Vavuniyaa camps should be allowed to go back to their villages and live a normal life; people in Jaffna peninsula should be allowed to use A9 road without restrictions; the various restrictions imposed in Jaffna peninsula including fishing bans and travel restrictions should be lifted immediately.
Let the government first solve these problems, JTA members said.
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