5:04 PM

TNA in dilemma

Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which till now insisted on recognising the Tigers as the sole representative of the Tamil people, will now take some crucial decisions on their future stand in the coming days, party sources said yesterday.

The other major decision before them is whether to go along with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, brought in under the Indo-Lanka Accord signed in 1987. The visiting Indian National Security Advisor, M.K. Narayanan and Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon early this week reportedly got an assurance from the Sri Lankan Government that it would implement the 13th Amendment as a means of resolving the conflict. Earlier, the TNA rejected the 13th Amendment as being totally inadequate.

With much of the head and body of the LTTE decimated during the 'bitter end' of their fight early last week, sources said the TNA Parliamentary Group was scheduled to meet on Friday to decide on their next course of action, but owing to the death of their Ampara District Parliamentarian K. Pathmanathan in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, the meeting had been put off. His body was flown to Colombo on Friday and was taken to Karaitivu yesterday for cremation on Monday.

According to party sources their Parliamentary Group meeting was scheduled to take place on Friday at the residence of Gajendra Kumar (G.G.) Ponnambalam. However, when contacted in this regard Ponnambalam said he was not aware of any meeting scheduled to take place at his residence, and added he was too busy to discuss anything further and requested us to contact him much later.

Meanwhile, after the total liberation of the NFZ, there was fear something might have happened to Mullaitivu District MP Sathasivam Kanagaratnam as his whereabouts were not known. But he was traced and a CID team picked him up from the Menik Farm IDP camp on Thursday evening, according to TNA Parliamentarian Sivanathan Kisshor, to record a statement.
Yesterday, CID brought Kanagaratnam to the Jayaratne Funeral Parlour at Borella for him to pay his last respects to his dead colleague and took him back after about 20 minutes.

Now freed from Tiger shackles it looks as if some members of the TNA now want to arrive at a settlement with the South. TNA Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told News-Lanka that he never subscribed to the view of recognising Tigers as the sole representatives of the Tamils.

Since the gunfire has ceased, he said now was the time to redress problems facing Tamils, re-open A9 Road, demilitarise the entire region and even lift the daily curfew in Jaffna.
He said the short meeting they had with the two visiting Indian dignitaries on Thursday at the India House was hardly enough to bring out their problems.

1 comments:

Lanka News Reporter said...

Yes they should have to decide whether they live in zSrilanka or not.
Lanka News Reporter