"Tamil parties' alliance formed to support liberation struggle"-TULF

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 October 2001, 18:45 GMT]
The Tamil United Liberation Front said Sunday that the Tamil parties' alliance has been formed to muster support of the Tamil people and their political forces for the freedom-struggle of the Liberation Tigers in and out parliament and not aimed at elections."The time has now come for all the Tamil political forces in the northeast to unite under one banner to give full support for the militants who are involved in the freedom struggle," said Mr.R.Sampanthan, Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and the chief candidate of the Tamil parties' alliance for the Trincomalee district addressing alliance activists Sunday morning at his residence.

Over two hundred Tamil youths and veteran party activists attended the meeting which was convened to work out an election strategy to be deployed at the forthcoming general election, aiming to capture two parliamentary seats in the Trincomalee district, alliance sources said. (Photo: Mr.R.Sampanthan, chief candidate of the Tamil parties' alliance (on right) and Mr.K.Thurairetnasingham, number two candidate in the TULF list for Trincomalee district are seen in the picture )

"The armed freedom struggle of the Liberation Tigers was not launched hastily. It was launched when all means of non-violent methods adopted by Tamil moderate leaders led by late Mr.S.J.V.Chelvanayagam failed to achieve desired results for the Tamil national question for the last fifty years through negotiations and by signing several pacts with Sinhala ruling parties. No one can deny this fact," said Mr.Sampanthan.

Mr.Sampanthan added, "without the wholehearted participation of the Liberation Tigers, no firm and lasting political solution cannot be found for the Tamil nation question. Political solution found in talks with Liberation Tigers can only be implemented under the supervision of the international community. Therefore the government should first declare a cease-fire and initiate talks with the Liberation Tigers without hesitation."

"One of the main demands of the Tamil parties' alliance is that no talks should be held by the government with any other group when negotiating with the Liberation Tigers" stressed Mr.Sampanthan.

"The Tamil parties' alliance would exert pressure on the government and chauvinist forces through non-violent methods if they failed to declare ceasefire and initiate peace talks with Liberation Tigers with third party mediation", Mr.Sampanthan declared.