Tamils propose Prof. Sivathamby too for council
[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 October 2001, 20:00 GMT]
Tamil opposition parties in Sri Lanka's Parliament Saturday night proposed the names of Prof.Karthigesu Sivathamby, Dr.Devanesan Nesaiah, former judge Mr.T.Suntharalingam and former Treasury Secretary Mr.A.Shanmugalingam after a legal hitch precluded the nominee they selected Thursday. The three parties told the Prime Minister to appoint one from among the four names proposed by them to the constitutional council.
The three opposition Tamil parties, the Tamil United Liberation front (TULF), the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) which met today at the office of the TULF in Colombo, resolved not to have any discussions with the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) on the nomination to the constitutional council. The EPDP and Sri Lanka's Prime Minister objected to the nomination of Mr. R.I.Thambiratnam because he, a practicing lawyer could not be on the council, a TULF source told TamilNet. The EPDP insisted Friday that it should also have a say in nominating an ethnic Tamil member to the council from the island's north and east. It proposed the name of Dr. Gunasingham to the council, against the nomination of the lawyer Mr. Thambiratnam. The United National Party MP for Jaffna echoed the EPDP's position that his opinion too should be taken into account in nominating a Tamil candidate to the council. However, on Thursday, the TELO leader 'Selvam' Adaikalanathan refused to have any dialogue with the EPDP and the UNP member for Jaffna on the grounds that the former was an integral part of the government and that the latter had no moral right to talk about the predicament of the Tamils in the northern and eastern parts of the island. Meanwhile, the Muslim parties in the Parliament decided to nominate a former Appeal Court Judge Mr. M. Jameel to the council. Mr. Jameel served as ambassador to the UAE after retiring from the judicial service.
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