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JVP LEADER SOMAWANSA ALLEGES RANIL HAS ENTERED INTO ANOTHER SECRET PACT WITH PRABHAKARAN TO OBTAIN VOTES

By Walter Jayawardhana

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Somawansa Amerasinghe alleged that UNF Presidential candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe has entered into another secret pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to obtain votes from Northern and Eastern provinces at the coming Presidential elections.

He challenged Wickremesinghe to reveal the conditions of the alleged pact before November 15.

In an exclusive interview with this correspondent at the JVP headquarters at Nugegoda the party leader pointed out that the failures of Ranil Wickremesinghe to condemn the assassinations of former foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and the two Jaffna principals of leading schools in Jaffna who refused to let the LTTE recruit child soldiers from their schools as terrorist acts of the LTTE were caused by the pact and explained his strong desire to protect it.

He said the promises made by the LTTE to obtain votes of the Tamil people of the North and East by hook or by crook have also prevented Mr. Wickremesinghe to join the rest of the world in praising the decision of the European Union to ban the LTTE across Europe.

The following were some of the questions asked at the interview and Somawansa’s responses to them:

Question: Are you certain that there is a secret pact between Ranil and Prabhakaran regarding the elections?

Answer: Yes, I am very certain. That’s the very reason why Ranil is speaking about reducing the number of regiments of the Sri Lanka Army. Any political organization should have a sense of things happening. Young UNP MP’s like Jayasiri Jayasekera are coming out in the television and boasting that only their leader could go to the North and East. How is it that only he could go to North and East while people who are opposed to the division of the country cannot go there?

Question: The UNP claims that that if Ranil Wickremesinghe does not come to power there would be war. What do you think about it?

Answer: It is not the LTTE, which is telling that the war is coming. It is the agents of the LTTE who are outside North and East who are threatening that the war is coming. I challenge the LTTE to say so. I am certain the LTTE is not in a position to say so since they know under the present circumstances both here and abroad they cannot go back to war.

Question: Ranil Wickremesinghe has now admitted there are certain shortcomings in the ceasefire agreement he signed with Prabhakaran. What are your observations regarding these comments.

Answer: He has admitted there were only minor shortcomings in the agreement. But I would ask whether it is only a minor defect if the elected President of the country and the Prime Minister of the country cannot go anywhere in the demarcated areas for the Tigers under the agreement. Is it only a minor defect if the rest of the population had to pay taxes when they entered the demarcated areas for the Tigers? Is it only a minor defect if the agreement allowed the LTTE to take three of our police men and keep them imprisoned most probably in a bunker now? Is it only a minor defect if the country’s legitimate army cannot step inside the nation’s sovereign territory demarcated for Tigers? It was under the agreement the LTTE smuggled in large hauls of arms when the Ranil Wickremesinghe government showed a Nelsonian eye. Is it only a minor defect if the agreement allowed building an airstrip enabling them to strike at the seat of the government? Is it only minor defect if the LTTE suicide bombers were allowed under the agreement to enter Colombo and kill? Is it only a minor defect if the ceasefire agreement allowed the LTTE to kill the country’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and a top soldier of the country, Muthaliff? Ranil Wickremesinghe entered into this ceasefire agreement at a time when the LTTE was weakened by the army’s long-range attacks. He entered into this agreement when the LTTE was weakened by a ban by the Western governments and was unable to purchase as many weapons as before. The agreement only gave them a favorable position in the balance of power. The Prime Minister cannot travel anywhere in the country without the threat of being killed by them. How could a nation go on like that? The sovereignty, independence and the territorial integrity of the country is a birth right of all citizens of Sri Lanka. What right does Ranil Wickremesinghe has to banish those birth rights of all citizens? Today LTTE territories enjoy VIP status under the so-called peace accord. They enjoy the status of ministers under it.

Question: Ranil Wickremesinghe’s People’s Agenda Manifesto speaks about a balanced de-militarization of the Sri Lanka Army? What are your observations on that?

Answer: When you speak about balancing essentially there should be two sides. In the so-called ceasefire agreement Ranil Wickremesinghe accepted two sides. They are the Government of Sri Lanka governed areas and the LTTE governed areas. The demarcated area for the LTTE has an army parallel with the legitimate armed forces of the government of Sri Lanka. This was something no other UNP President dared to allow officially, at any time before Ranil Wickremesinghe.

After doing that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government tied the hands of the Sri Lanka Army They cannot go to the LTTE controlled areas while LTTE soldiers could travel in the GOSL controlled areas in the guise of doing propaganda work. They have brought arms and explosives to these areas on numerous occasions. The whole country knows how Ranil Wickremesinghe purposely destroyed the Millennium City intelligence unit of the Sri Lanka Army by falsely alleging them as assassins preparing to kill Wickremesinghe and revealing the names of he officers in the UNP controlled press. An army with a fully devastated intelligence unit is like a fighting man without a head. Meanwhile he allowed the intelligence unit of the LTTE forces to expand limitlessly. It spread its net all over the country. They have even recruited pro-UNP journalists in their intelligence activities. In the Muthaliff assassination it was revealed that that one of the suspects was working for the UNP media unit. In short under the ceasefire agreement Ranil Wickremesinghe balanced the armed forces in favour of the LTTE.

Ranil Wickremesinghe should be personally held responsible for this great national disaster. Despite his plans to decrease the strength of the legitimate forces of the country The LTTE has broadened the forces in numbers and in arms. They increased the recruitment of child soldiers. They have even built an airstrip that could be used to strike up to Chennai in South India and the President’s House in Colombo.

In the UNP manifesto Ranil Wickremesinghe is proposing to reduce the legitimate army of Sri Lanka. It speaks (on page 15) of “balance and verifiable de-escalation de-militarization and normalization process.” He is clearly going to decrease our armed forces in numbers. He is proposing to ruin our army at a time when the LTTE is ready to divide the country by all means. The only way of protecting our nation is not to try and balance our army with a separatist army but to strengthen it by all means. Forgetting all other defects of Ranil Wickremesinghe, and taking this as his only defect it is an issue that should be taken as aptly sufficient reason to defeat Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Question: How do you compare Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe as candidates at the coming Presidential elections?

Answer: The two camps are very clear now. In short the two camps provide the country to select between the country and the Tigers. They also provide a chance for the voters to select between national and foreign interests. Casino owners and other anti-national interests are supporting the UNF candidate. The Ceylon Workers Congress leaders, who always sold the toiling plantation workers for their own personal interests are supporting the UNF camp. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, who has refused to protect the interests of the Muslims by aligning itself with the friends of the Tigers, the UNP are the other partners.

Ranil Wickremesinghe has yet to reveal not only the conditions of the secret pacts between those above parties but also the conditions of the pact reached with the Tigers. In contrast to Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mahinda Rajapaksa is supported by all progressive and nationalist forces of the country including the country’s only environmental party , the Green Party. There are 24 parties who support Mahinda Rajapaksa. Numerous organizations of professionals, intellectuals, artists. the armed forces , trade unions businessmenand land owners are behind his candidature. It was Ranil Wickremesinghe’s anti-national policies that brought all those sections on one platform.

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