SRI LANKA’S FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS DETERMINED TO TAKE BOLD STEPS TO CUT THE FUNDING LINES OF LTTE

By Walter Jayawardhana

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told Gulf Times that the government is determined and taking bold steps to cut the funding lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which is engaged in an insurgency against the government of Sri Lanka.

Bogollagama was passing through Doha in Qatar in transit with his Foreign Secretary Palitha T. B. Kohona when the newspaper’s Ramesh Mathew interviewed him. They were returning home after having deliberations with leaders in India and Germany in a four day trip .

Further adding to his Foreign Minister Kohona told the newspaper that the LTTE was collecting funds from all possible channels in the world including the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Qatar is a Gulf Cooperation Council state.

“We had extensive deliberations with foreign ministers of Germany and India and the two countries have promised their continuous support to Sri Lanka in fighting those engaged in a violent struggle for statehood on our soil,” Bogollagama was quoted having told the newspaper.

Speaking about his talks with German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Stein Meier, Bogollagama Gulf Times his visit had helped change certain misconceptions that many European Union (EU) members, including Germany, had about Sri Lanka’s fight against terrorism.

He described the talks with Germany as extremely fruitful. “We conveyed to the German government the clarity and transparency in which Sri Lanka is combating those waging the armed battle against the country.”

Terming Germany as a country with which Lanka had longstanding relations, Bogollagama told the Middle Eastern newspaper with its present position as the president of the EU Germany would be able to communicate to other EU members the urgency of disarming organizations like the LTTE. “Once their funding lines are effectively cut, the LTTE would not be able to continue its armed struggle,” the minister reiterated.

In the absence of any financial aid, the LTTE would not be in a position to wage a war against the state anymore, he further told the newspaper.

Bogollagama said Germany had promised to continue its financial aid for development projects.
Recalling that the United Nations had termed LTTE as perpetrators of violence in a number of its resolutions in the last few years, he said one of the resolutions had termed the outfit as a violator of norms on the issue of recruitment of child-soldiers.

“UNICEF had also expressed concerns over the forcible recruitment of children by the LTTE in the last few years,” said the minister.

Contrary to the undertaking it had given to UNICEF against enlisting children for combat, the LTTE is still going ahead with their recruitment, the minister pointed out.The minister said according to UNICEF reports, months succeeding the signing of ceasefire the outfit had enlisted 5,700 child volunteers.

He applauded Qatar’s contribution to the Lanka’s exchequer and said his country was looking forward to the proposed visit of the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in December.
“Hopefully, our president would visit Qatar shortly,” said Bogollagama.

Kohona said the LTTE is forcibly collecting funds from all possible channels worldwide, including the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and this money was being used for buying weapons.
The foreign secretary, who is also an adviser to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said over 1.3mn Tamils have already migrated to the west and Australia and now only 4% of the Sri Lankan population is Tamil.

The official also claimed that 54% of the Tamil population has already moved to areas where Sinhalese are in majority.

Kohona recalled that when the ethnic conflict began in 1983, at least 12.5% of the Lankan population was Tamil. Most of the migrations, he said, were to the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, Australia and the United States.

Queried if Sri Lanka was looking forward to any negotiator other than Norway in the peace talks, the official said he did not see any need for any other negotiators in settling the ethnic issue