New SL Navy base violates ceasefire - LTTE

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 September 2002, 11:42 GMT]
The political wing leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Mr.S.P.Thamilselvan said Tuesday that the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) is building a new camp on the island of Delft off Jaffna in violation of the LTTE's Ceasefire Agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka. He urged the head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to take immediate action on the matter.

The following is the full text of the Mr. Thamilselvan's letter to the head of the SLMM.

Major General Trond Furuhovde,
Head of SLMM,
SLMM HQ,
Colombo.

Setting up of new SLN camp at Delft

Dear General,

This is to bring to your immediate attention a serious violation of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in Delft (Jaffna Islands.)

On 23rd Sep. 2002 at 8.00 a.m an SLN landing craft brought over fifty SLN personnel and landed on the beach in close vicinity of the AGA office at Delft and are in the process of establishing a camp therein.

We consider this as a serious violation and are afraid this act will create unnecessary tension and panic among the civilians. Also we wish to point out here specifically that the relevant article in the CFA relating to maintaining the status quo as on December 2001, in that no new position should be established by either party from the effective date of the CFA . In this instance we wish to point out that there wasn’t in existence any camps in the Delft region at the time when our cadres arrived there for political work.

The present SLN camp referred to above and the police post set up recently fall within the ambit of the relevant article prohibiting either party in establishing new defense positions. This we consider as a serious breach of trust and confidence and will tend to negate the peace dividence already achieved.

Immediate action is therefore necessary to dismantle any structures put up therein and avoid unnecessary civilian unrest. This information has been already conveyed to the SLMM Jaffna by our district office.

Yours sincerely,

Sgd:
S.P.Thamilselvan,
Leader,
Political Wing,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.