GR points finger at TNA’s culpability in LTTE 

atrocities-Lionising dead Tiger chief

November 28, 2013, 9:26 pm 

by Shamindra Ferdinando

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday alleged that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was making a deliberate attempt to sabotage the post-war reconciliation process.

The Defence Secretary told The Island that the TNA’s tribute to the dead LTTE leader Velupillai on his birth anniversary was meant to provoke the government as well as the armed forces.

The TNA consists of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), TELO, PLOTE, EPRLF and TULF. The TNA parliamentary group comprises 13 MPs, with the ITAK having nine and the TELO and the EPRLF two each.

Defence Secretary Rajapaksa accused the TNA of causing instability and political turmoil in the  Northern Province in the run-up to the next session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva next March.

Asked whether he could substantiate his allegation, the Defence Secretary said that since the conclusion of the conflict in May 2009, the TNA hadn’t publicly acclaimed Prabhakaran in Parliament, though various events were held in the Northern Province as well as overseas to coincide with LTTE’s Heroes’ Week celebrations.

He alleged that the TNA continued to take orders from the LTTE rump even four years after the end of the conflict.

Recollecting the circumstances under which the TNA had to recognise the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people, in the run-up to Dec 2001 general election, the Defence Secretary stressed that the TNA couldn’t absolve itself of the responsibility for the atrocities committed by the LTTE during Eelam war IV. Throughout the last war, the TNA had remained with the LTTE and continues to back Prabhakaran’s Eelam project, the Defence Secretary alleged. Those who had moved a resolution against Sri Lanka in March last year in Geneva over accountability issues, on behalf of the LTTE rump, should take up the issue with the TNA leadership.

The Defence Secretary asked: Would the US, the UK or India allow people’s representatives to lionise a murderer? Could the US permit a remembrance service in memory of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden?. He said there should be not double standards in dealing with terrorists."

Responding to a query, he said that all political parties should unite against efforts to bring back terror. Whatever the political differences, there couldn’t be any dispute that the LTTE or its agents shouldn’t be tolerated, the Defence Secretary said.