Don't include LTTE in post-tsunami rebuilding effort - JVP

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2005, 05:36 GMT]
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a major coalition partner of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance government and a self styled radical marxist party that draws on Sinhala nationalist sentiments to augment its popularity, has expressed its strong opposition to the government's bid to include the Liberation Tigers in the post-tsunami relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation process using the outpouring international aid resources.

Addressing to a large number of JVP relief workers assigned to the Amparai and Battticaloa districts, JVP's leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said in Polonnaruwa last week that the party would not accept the LTTE's participation in this effort as it would give advantage to legitimize the LTTE.

According to Colombo-based media reports, he has said that the government should be able carry out the immediate relief and rebuilding program in tsunami-hit areas, including the North-East, and if the LTTE prevented the people from receiving assistance directed through the government mechanism, then the organization would be answerable to the international community.

The JVP leader said that the LTTE's participation should not be allowed as long as it remained armed.

JVP's remarks have come at a time when the government is engaged in working out a common mechanism with the LTTE to handle the disbursement of international aid resources to the tsunami-affected people in the North-East.

The JVP, which once killed hundreds of local people for consuming Indian products such as dhal and Bombay onion, has said this time that it would not reject international relief assistance.

The JVP leader also hailed India's handling of the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka and said that the government of India should not have allowed unnecessary outside interferences into the country under guise of urgent humanitarian assistance.