JVP warns of anti-Tamil violence - paper

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 October 1998, 11:55 GMT]
Sinhala racist organisations are trying to use the deaths of large numbers of Sri Lankan soldiers recently to whip up anti-Tamil violence, said a JVP leader, Mr. Vimal Weerawamsa at a party meeting last week, according to the Sinhala language newspaper, the Lakbima.

"While body-bags of soldiers keep arriving all over the country some Sinhala racist organisations such as the National Movement Against Terrorism have begun to exploit the situation", said Mr. Weerawamsa while addressing the JVPís central committee meeting on October 14, said the paper.

"They approach those families who have lost their sons to peddle their racist slogan - lets kill the Tamils ", Mr. Weerawamsa said.

"The National Movement Against Terrorism is riddled with people involved in the killings of tens of thousands of Sinhalese youth in the late 80s" said Mr. Weerawamsa. They also have links with the UNP, he added according to the paper.

@@file1@@Human rights organisations say between 1987 and 1990, up to 60,000 Sinhalese, mainly youths, were murdered by death squads run by the Sri Lankan military battling an armed rebellion in the south of the island.

The JVP meeting was chaired by Tylvin Silva, the General Secretary, and was attended by the party's main district organisers, said the paper.

"We must try and understand the new social developments as they are, without being dogmatic" Mr. Silva told the JVP activists, according to the paper.