The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Letters to the Editor/<br> Free Press Forum

Sat Oct 11 2008

Departments
Letters to the Editor/
Free Press Forum

Tamil people hope the world will stand with them in the new year
by Political Wing, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
January 1, 2007

Throughout 2006, Tamil people made a constant and consistent appeal for permanent peace in the island. They hoped that through the full implementation of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) this can and will be achieved. Mirroring their hopes, LTTE too repeatedly appealed for the full implementation of the same.

On October 28 in his opening speech at the Geneva talks Tamilselvan said, "We request the international community, the Co-Chairs and the Norwegian facilitators to act to ensure one hundred percent the implementation of the CFA and the strengthening the role of the SLMM. We are confident that such actions will bring normalcy in the lives of our people, and help in taking forward the peace process towards a satisfactory conclusion".

On 22 December following a meeting with Norwegian Special Envoy, Jan Hansen Bauer, LTTE again appealed in a press statement, "If permanent peace is the desired outcome, the CFA signed by both parties and backed by the Norwegians, and the international community must be implemented 100%".

Today, to the profound disappointment of the Tamil people, the CFA is in tatters. Areas demarcated in the CFA have been occupied by the Sri Lankan military at huge loss of Tamil civilian life and property and the process is continuing. A9 and A15, life line land routes, to large Tamil civilian populations are kept closed; again at huge humanitarian cost to civilian population. One of the fundamental assumptions of the CFA, the Northeast province, is now broken into pieces. One must wonder if the CFA can be violated any more seriously than this.

When the departing Secretary General, Kofi Annan, came to the island in January 2005, to see firsthand the tsunami devastation, he was barred from visiting parts of the badly affected Tamil homeland. The joint structure for tsunami reconstruction, supported by the international community, was also finally thrown to the dustbin. In spite of this, the Secretary General, in his message to mark the second tsunami anniversary, addressed his call for a halt to "new tide of conflict" to "all parties" rather than to the Government of Sri Lanka, the party that has destroyed the very basic foundations of the CFA. Sadly, such neutral statements will not produce the desired outcome.

Tamil people hope that the world will view the year 2006 for what it is and in the new year stand with the Tamils in their sincere effort to seek a permanent peace through a just political solution.

--
Peace Secretariat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam.
Kilinochchi.
Tamileelam.

Email this article to a friend