JVP anti-peace protests kick off

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 April 2002, 19:18 GMT]
The Marxist Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) held a demonstration at Lipton Square in down town Colombo Tuesday afternoon against the government's peace move. An estimated five-thousand JVP members and activists participated in the protest, led by the Sinhala nationalist party's general secretary, Mr.Tilvin Silva, which later travelled in a procession and ended with a protest meeting at Hyde Park.

JVP demonstration in Colombo, Tuesday. (Photo: TamilNet)

In other moves by the Marxists in opposition to the peace process, a motion tabled by the JVP condemning the cease-fire agreement signed by the United National Front government and the LTTE is to be taken up for two-day debate at the monthly meeting of the Western Provincial Council Wednesday.

Meanwhile the Police Tuesday informed the Eastern People's Organization (EPO) that protest march it has scheduled for April 24 should stop outside the capital Colombo. The EPO, a front organization of the JVP, is proposing to march from Trincomalee to Colombo, but the police have ordered them to stop at Peliyagoda.

The EPO announced that it decided to conduct the march against the move to lift the ban on the Liberations Tigers of Tamil Eelam and to hand over the interim administration for the northeast province to the LTTE. They further plan to hand over memorandum to the Prime Minister at his Temple Trees office at the end of the march.

The EPO held a press conference Tuesday morning at the Trincomalee Sangamitta Pilgrims Rest to brief the medias about the proposed march. While the press conference was underway, a police party told the organiser that the Deputy Inspector General of Police has directed that the protest vehicles would not be allowed into Colombo, and would instead be stopped at Peliyagoda, on Colombo-Kandy trunk road.

The convener of the EPO, Mr.Jayantha Wijesekara, said at the press conference that though the Police have banned their protest vehicles entering Colombo, the march itself would commence at 1 p.m. on Wednesday from Trincomalee with fifty vehicles. More vehicles will join the march at Kantalai and other areas. He said about two hundred and fifty vehicles would reach Colombo.

He added that due to the Police ban, all vehicles would stop at Peliyagoda and from there volunteers would go to the Prime Minister's office at Temple Trees by foot and would hand over a memorandum against lifting the ban on LTTE and handing over the northeast interim administration to the LTTE.

He claimed that government's peace move to appease the LTTE is detrimental to the country and the harmony now prevailing among all communities.

Venerable Pangnaseeha Thera and Mr.R.M.Rahim attended the press conference.

Anjana Ummaha (JVP parliamnetarain), Feryal Ashraff, Anura Bandaranaike (PA parliamentarain, and former speaker of the house), Mr.Wimal Weerawanse JVP's Propaganda Secretary, and Dinesh Gunewardene (MEP) at the rally in Colombo, Tuesday. (Photo:TamilNet)