'Chauvinists see LTTE's development offices as camps' -TNA MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 September 2004, 02:39 GMT]
Chauvinist forces in the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Government of Sri Lanka are saying that the offices the Liberation Tigers have constructed for rehabilitation and development efforts in Trincomalee are military camps in proximity to the government security installations, said Mr.Thurairatnesingham, the Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian from Trincomalee, addressing a meeting following the opening of the Trincomalee district office of The Economic Consultancy House (TECH) Friday.

A section of the participants at the event.

Several forces in the present government of Sri Lanka are thinking of continuing the current "no war, no peace" situation without finding a permanent resolution to the Tamil national question, said Mr.K.Thurairetnasingham.

"Chauvinist forces in UPFA Government that are opposing the peace efforts are making an unfounded allegation against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that the latter has constructed several new military camps in Trincomalee close to the proximity of the government security installations," said the MP.

"The LTTE sincerely respects the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it has signed with the government [of Sri Lanka] some thirty months ago that it would pave way for the restoration of normalcy in the lives of several hundreds of thousands of internally displaced families now residing in camps and welfare centres with bleak future. Hence the LTTE is seriously engaged in the rehabilitating their lives and reconstruct the devastated villages. They open offices in several parts of the district to fully engage in rehabilitation and reconstruction works. The chauvinist elements see those offices as LTTE camps," Mr.Thurairatnesingham said.

He reminded the audience that the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) had dismissed those allegations as baseless.

The LTTE's Economic development Director, Mr.S.Thilak, and several others also spoke.

( L-R)TECH Director Mr.Sundaramoorthy, Mr.R.Sampanthan ( MP ), Mr.Thilak, Economic Development Director , Mr.S.Vijayadeva of T.R.Tec in London and Mr.K.Thurairatnasingham ( MP ) attending a discussion after the opening of the TECH office in Trincomalee.