A day after the Sri Lankan government relaxed some of the emergency regulations, Prime Minister D M Jayaratne told Parliament on Tuesday that the State of Emergency as such would continue in view of the fact that the LTTE was busy re-establishing its military wing to resume its struggle for an independent Tamil Eelam.
The emergency regulations that were removed with immediate effect related to holding of meetings, gatherings, curfew, printing certain kinds of literature, and providing information to the police on persons staying in each house, the Minister of External Affairs, G L Peiris, told the House. Explaining the need to continue the Emergency, albeit with some modifications, Jayaratne said that Tiger supporters overseas were gathering funds with the aim of sending them to the LTTE’s cadre still hiding in the island nation. “Their sole objective is to arm the LTTE members for starting a military struggle again,” he said. The greatest task confronting the country was defeating the LTTE’s networks operating outside the country, the Prime Minister said.
TRANSNATIONAL GOVT: Tiger sympathisers among expatriate Tamils were making preparations to convene a Transnational Government of Tamil Ealam (TGTE) in Switzerland next week, to coincide with the first death anniversary of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Jayaratne said.
Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, an US-based lawyer, who had acted as legal advisor to Prabhakaran, is the spirit behind the bid to form a Provisional TGTE.
Rudrakumaran was trying to secure international support for this anti-Sri Lankan project, Jayaratne noted.
LTTE sympathisers in the UK had formed a front called Global Tamil Forum based on the Eelam concept, and in Norway, they had rallied round one Nediyavan, he said.
“All these forces are trying to carve out a separate state in Sri Lanka,” the Prime Minister said, justifying the continuance of the main Emergency Regulations.
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