Don't visit Colombo, Ganesan tells NorthEast Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 June 2008, 16:58 GMT]
Accusing both the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers for action irrationally, Mano Ganesan, leader of Western People’s Front (WPF) and the Convener of Civil Monitoring Commission (CMC) said in a media release Saturday, "[n]either the government nor the LTTE have any control over blasts going on in the respective territories under their own control," and appealed to the Tamil civilians travelling from NorthEast to stay away from Colombo and the South as both areas are "unsafe and insecure for Tamil civilians."

Full text of the media release follows:

"Capital Colombo and south in general are unsafe and insecure for Tamil civilians traveling from north and eastern provinces. The recent bomb blasts have triggered hate and doubts on all those Tamils coming to Colombo from northeast.

"The state media is orchestrating this hate campaign on an hourly basis. Rational behavior cannot be assured within the security establishment authorized to maintain law and order.

"We are not in a position to assure safety to Tamils coming to Colombo from north and east. Therefore I call upon the Tamils to refrain from coming to Colombo until further notice. Nobody other than me, the Colombo district’s elected Tamil parliamentarian has more legitimacy to make this announcement said Mano Ganesan in a statement.

"Member of Parliament for Colombo district Ganesan who is the Leader of Western Peoples Front and Convener of Civil Monitoring Commission said further in his statement, Numbers of persons have been reported arrested and gone missing immediately after the bomb blasts. We have come to a situation where it is difficult to differentiate between the acts of Abductions and Arrests.

"The family members of the victims are pleading for relief at our offices and crowding at police stations. The plights of the elderly parents are awful. On the other hand the expressions of grief of the family members of the bus bomb victims in Moratuwa and Kandy are heart breaking. The cries of the civilians are haunting me. All these people are suffering due to the sins of power hungry politicians of both sides. These are chain actions to the bombings in Colombo and in Wanni. We have absolutely no controls over these activities.

"Neither the government nor the LTTE have any control over blasts going on in the respective territories under their own control. So is the inactive parliamentary opposition. All civil society voices have drawn in the war drum beats. There are only empty rhetoric statements but the sufferings of the people are ascending from bad to worse.

"Both the government and the LTTE are at war. The illogic and irrational pundits in the government and LTTE have stopped listening to the international community. Their actions have triggered acts of revenge over the innocent civilians of both sides.

"We go to their assistance when people are at trouble. We make noises and take up the issue when civilians go missing due to extra judicial activities of the state. We are running campaigns on sharing political power as solutions for the national question. We are doing this in the name of peace in this country. We are committed to the just cause. We are risking our own personal lives yet we do not want to go down in the history as cowards. We are not running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. We face the pressure and the burden hence we have to inform the reality. Our limits have extended to the limits now. We are unable to cope up with the situation.

"I therefore call upon the Tamil people of the north and east to refrain from coming to Colombo until further notice. This is the only way available for me to support the maintenance of some order in Colombo."

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