The statement below was given at a press conference by Vickramabahu Karunarathne (‘Bahu’) the general secretary of the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP – New Socialist Party). Click on the link to watch an interview with Suren Surendiran on Press TV which begins with George Galloway repeatedly pressing him to condemn the LTTE as terrorists. This does not seem the obvious starting point for a conversation when civilians are getting shelled and starved to death by the Sri Lankan army. Suren acquits himself well and makes the obvious comparisons between the massacre in Gaza and that currently happening in Sri Lanka and strongly asserts the Tamils’ claim to self determination.

There is an international commotion about the blood bath and the human disaster in Lanka. It can lead eventually to an international intervention that could enslave every body. We called this press conference to make every body aware of the developing situation.

Government leaders claim that they have confined the LTTE activity to a very small area near Mulative. It is said that the LTTE leadership and the last battalions are within the 15000 people caught in the Area. LTTE challenges these figures and say that around 120 000 are cornered in the limited area. UN says it is more than 50 000. Whatever it may be only access to food and other necessity for these people, is the ICRC shipment that supposed to arrive twice a week to this enclosure with the government permission. This shipment includes 25 metric tonnes of food and medicine, and the boat intake back is about 500 passengers. There are more than 2000 wounded and sick in the area waiting to go out but the government has not made any extra arrangement for that. While these people are confined to this hellhole the government is continuing its attacks. Shells and multi barrels are used day and nights. In the last few days over 2000 were killed and many more are injured.

Government claims that LTTE is responsible for this misery and demands that Tigers should unconditionally surrender. But at the same time the government says that Tigers are criminals already convicted by Lankan and Indian courts. There for they will be punished accordingly. In that event there is no room for any discussion at all. Tigers are assumed to be just criminals and not even an indirect product of Tamil national problem. At the same time they have accepted that nearly 3000 LTTE cadres are in their custody. Burt nobody knows where they are. It is suspected that they are kept at some desolate place in Vanni. What is their fate is totally unknown. In the recent past many who were in state custody were killed by ‘confrontations’ made by the prisoners, when they were taken out of the place of imprisonment! Among them some were LTTE suspects. In the past Wijeweera, a Sinhala rebel was burned alive while he was in army custody. In that back ground if the LTTE leaders surrender their fate will be shameful humiliating death. It will be a severe discredit to the struggle and the Tamil people. In that reality we ask who has the right to demand the LTTE to surrender. We, the Left do not agree with the ferocious methods and the bourgeoisie politics of the Tigers. But they are Tamil liberation fighters and they have the right to be treated as such. Bogus demands of the government have no meaning. Government is demanding that the Tamil people be allowed to leave Tiger areas so that Tiger militants are left behind to be slaughtered by the army. Some lunatics blame Tigers for not agreeing to this demand! If these ladies and gentlemen are so committed to the innocent lives they should demand the government to agree to a genuine cease fire.

The people who have entered the Sinhala army zone are kept in military protected camps. These are open prisons without adequate facilities. No real information about the situation is available from independent sources. Those who divulge information obtained secretly, are punished or thrown out of the country. In such a situation there could be a large number of displaced Tamils who are willingly with the Tiger army. After all to a Tamil, misery under the Tamil army may be better than being a prisoner of the alien Sinhala forces. This tragic situation has developed in to an international uprising of the Tamil people, or more correctly a Dravidian universal protest. It is severely felt in India and spreading into the developed world. There are violent mass agitations every where. This could lead to an induction of foreign forces in Lanka.

We must stop this debacle and blood letting. Sinhala soldiers are also killed and wounded in thousands. All of them are from poor peasant families. Misery spreads into all corner of the country. We demand that the government stop the war and go for a peace agreement now!

www.nssp.info

tp 0777237241
contributions:

NAVA SAMA SAMAJA PARTY, 17BARRACKS LANE, COLOMBO 2
A/C NO: 8004893301,
COMMERCIAL BANK OF CEYLON LIMITED  swift code CCEYLKLX