THE TERRORIST GROUP LTTE WANTS TO STANDBY ITS ALLY, THE RANIL WICKREMESINGHE ADMINISTRATION AND PLEDGES SUPPORT IN CRISIS

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

In the brewing constitutional conflict of Sri Lanka between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has pledged to stand by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The rebel group which initially helped Ranil Wickremesinghe through a pre-election agreement to win an overwhelming victory at the previous parliamentary elections by publicly announcing their support through a Hero’s Day announcement of LTTE leader Prabhakaran has said the unfettered survival of the UNF government was necessary to carry forward what they called the "peace process".

The main organ of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Tamil Guardian said in its leader editorial that the future of the peace process depended on the absolute command of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Front government.

The London based weekly, in its issue of August 7, 2002 said, "Mr. Wickremesinghe’s government is now in a fight for its survival and the longer term future of the peace process depends undoubtedly on the UNF’s absolute command of Sri Lanka’s governance."

The Tamil Guardian together with a Colombo based pro-LTTE-UNP newspaper the Sunday Leader have been advocating from the very inception of the UNF government that President Chandrika Kumaratunga should be impeached in parliament. Both newspapers almost repeatedly every week was warning Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that she would dissolve the parliament after one year under her Presidential powers ending the government of Ranil Wickremesinghe.

But Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe did not seem to have heeded the advise since it was quite obvious that his government did not have the parliamentary power to muster the two thirds majority to pass an impeachment against the executive President of the country. But cabinet ministers Ravi Karunanayaka and Rajitha Senarathna continued to campaign for such a move within the UNF ranks.

"We must get her before she got us", seemed to be their policy. They wanted to act before one year before she could dissolve the parliament. The executive President of Sri Lanka does not have the power to dissolve the parliament until one year from the time of a formation of the government since fresh parliamentary elections.

But ironically , it is the Ranil Wickremesinghe government that wanted to go to the elections now if the cohabitation between them and the President did not work any longer and some of its allies leave them and join President Kumaratunga. People’s Alliance spokesman Dr. Sarath Amunugama has said that since many in the UNF coalition was now willing to join the President’s People Alliance party it was not necessary to dissolve the parliament in December to form a new government. He said under Sri Lanka’s constitution the Prime minister did not have the power to dissolve the parliament to face fresh parliamentary elections but the President did.

The weekly organ of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that muster some parliamentary power through the Tamil National Alliance said, "While the bickering between Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the parliamentary cabinet of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been a recurrent theme ever since the United National Front (UNF) came to power last December , the turmoil in Colombo this week is indicative of a fundamental –and growing- crisis."