TNA withdraws from Eastern Province election at LTTE chief’s instance

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran has ordered its proxy political party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), not to contest the forthcoming Provincial Council elections in the Eastern Province, reports Daily News.
He issued this order when TNA parliamentarians were attending the funeral of slain TNA parliamentarian Sivanesan.
Meanwhile, the LTTE political wing leader B. Nadesan ordered the TNA parliamentarians to agitate at diplomatic missions in Colombo and complain that the government was violating human rights and also to speak against the ongoing conflict.
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) warned on March 20 that the Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) would use weapons to win the scheduled Eastern Province election and called for disarming the outfit, Colombo Page reported. Speaking at a press conference, JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said, "The government should disarm the group as it was bound to use weapons to win the elections through coercion and intimidation. If the government wants a free and fair poll, it should disarm the Pillayan group before holding the Provincial Council election in the East." He added that there is a threat from the LTTE on the TMVP but the security forces were capable of providing sufficient security to the group.
Meanwhile, Minister Mahinda Wijesekara said that a comprehensive devolution of political power to the people in the North is necessary to end the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka. The Minister said that the war alone will never be able to eliminate terrorism.
"War will only kill people, but it cannot kill the ideology that is why they (Tigers) are continuing to come with their belly bombs," he said. "We must be able to rescue them from Prabhakaran and to show them what the real liberty is. That is why we have to share the power," he added.
Further, the Government said that 'high profile visits to the Wanni' had not yielded any tangible progress in taking the peace process forward.
In response to the demands and concerns raised by a visiting high level European Union (EU) delegation, the Foreign Ministry said that such visits are used by the LTTE for propaganda purposes. "On the contrary, it had been observed that the LTTE had cynically used high profile visits by foreign dignitaries to the Wanni, for propaganda purposes," the Foreign Ministry noted. The EU delegation on March 18 said it had demanded from the Government to provide access for the Co-chairs and the Norwegian facilitators to Wanni to meet the LTTE leaders.