Sri Lanka to wipe LTTE out ‘in three months’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 December 2001, 01:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Friday said his ruling People’s Alliance (PA) government, if returned to power, would wipe out the Liberation Tigers within three months, the state-owned Daily News reported Saturday.

Ratnasiri Wickremanayake also reiterated the PA’s key election issue, that the main opposition United National Party (UNP) had entered into a treacherous pact with the LTTE and said the coalition of Tamil parties contesting next week’s polls were also supporting the movement.

“The PA is a patriotic party which has placed the country first. The UNP has aligned with Tamil parties who wanted a division of the country,” he said.

The Prime Minister told a PA election rally at Homagama he would challenge the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to openly denounce the LTTE as a ruthless terrorist organisation if possible.

“The LTTE has now been marginalised by the international community. The LTTE will become inactive with the drying up of its sources of foreign funding. The policies adopted by the PA Government will help to wipe out LTTE terrorism within the next three months,” the Daily News quoted Wickremesinghe as saying.

The Prime Minister said: “Four Tamil parties in the former parliament have now formed an alliance to contest the forthcoming elections. There is no doubt that they are representing the LTTE and catering to its interests.”

The Prime Minister said the President had spearheaded the international movement to proscribe the LTTE. This is why the President and leading members of her Government were in the LTTE hit list.