Sri Lanka’s prime minister on Friday urged Western nations to crack down on Tamils using their soil to revive the Tamil Tiger separatist movement that was crushed last year.
Premier D. M. Jayaratne said some of the 1.5 million ethnic Tamils living abroad were planning to form a movement to carry on the separatist cause to carve out an independent homeland for their community in Sri Lanka.
"The West is not doing enough to stop them from using their soil to agitate against us," Jayaratne told the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Sri Lanka at a meeting in Colombo.
He said Tiger sympathisers abroad had organised a three-day fund-raiser in Switzerland later this month from May 17 and expatriate Tamils were expected to attend. He gave no further details about the meeting.
"We don’t allow people to use our soil against another country," Jayaratne said. "I believe the West is not doing enough to crack down against anti-Sri Lankan activities. They must do more."
Last May, Sri Lankan troops killed rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ending his 37-year fight for a separate Tamil state on the Sinhalese-majority island.
Jayaratne also said emergency regulations, that have been in place since 1983, will be gradually scaled back in the coming months as the security situation had improved after the defeat of the rebels.
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