PM ignorant of Jaffna predicament- SLFP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 September 2000, 18:27 GMT]
"The Prime Minister does not know much about the Jaffna situation" said the chief organiser of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party in Jaffna, responding to a question about the hawkish pronouncements of Mr. Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka during a press conference in the northern town Saturday.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the convener and chief constituent of the People's Alliance, is contesting the general elections as an independent group in deference to its leadership's preference for the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP).

Addressing a press conference for local journalists at the SLFP office on Vembadi road in Jaffna town Saturday, Mr. Velmurugu Thangarajah, the chief organiser of the party in the north, said no solution to the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka is possible without the Liberation Tigers.

"We will speak up for the demands of the LTTE in Parliament if we are elected" Mr.Thangarajah emphasised.

A journalist interrupted him at this point and drew his attention to the fact that the Sri Lankan government has vowed to defeat the LTTE and the new Prime Minister Mr.Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka is making hawkish assertions about the ethnic conflict.

Mr. Thangarajah said that the Prime Minister is acting in this manner (taking a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist track) because he does not know much about Jaffna.