EPDP cheating people of Jaffna -Anandasangari

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 September 2000, 20:24 GMT]
"The EPDP was Premadasa's agent from 1989 to 1994. It has been operating as Chandrika's agent since 1995. Douglas Devananda, who did not have even half a cent in the past, is now getting seven million rupees a month from the government. The EPDP is cheating the people of Jaffna" said Mr. V. Anandasangari, senior vice President of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) lashing out at the pro-Sri Lankan government armed Tamil group, the Eelam People's Democratic party, at a press conference in Jaffna town Tuesday morning.

He said that the EPDP is a group that is doing business and not politics; that it is running a fiefdom in the island of Delft (Neduntheevu, off Jaffna) where there is neither Police nor civil administration. He charged that the EPDP's promise to provide jobs to people in Jaffna under Samurdhi, the government's poverty alleviation program, is a sham.

Mr. Anandasangari lambasted the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) too for its unlawful activities in Vavuniya.

The TULF, PLOTE and EPDP are contesting elections to the Sri Lankan Parliament next month. Mr. Anandasangari is a candidate of the TULF.

The PLOTE and the EPDP are seen by the TULF as its main contenders in several parts of Jaffna due to their financial power and relationship with the Sri Lankan security forces.

The PLOTE and the EPDP, however, charge that the TULF also liaises with sections of the Sri Lankan security forces to co-ordinate some of its activities in Jaffna and Colombo.

Mr.Mavai Senathirajah, a senior leader of the TULF who is also a contesting the elections said that the party rejected the government's proposals for constitutional change last month because it fell much short of the political aspirations of the Tamil people. "The government can never isolate Tigers and then find a political solution to the ethnic conflict" Mr. Senathirajah observed.

The press conference was held at the TULF's office on Stanly road in Jaffna town.