TULF: no arms were used to influence B’caloa polls

TULF leader V. Anandasangaree is critical of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decision to go ahead with elections to the Eastern Provincial Council.
However should the President wish to conduct the election hot on the heels of March 10 local government polls in the Batticaloa District, he should at least delay the withdrawal of the elite Special Task Force (STF) from parts of the Ampara District in the Eastern Province until the polls were over, he said.
The Defence Ministry last week said the STF had to be deployed in the North Central Province in support of ongoing military action on the Vanni, Mannar and Weli Oya fronts.
The veteran politician said the President should have delayed elections until the full restoration of civilian administration in the East.

It would have been better had the government put off elections until security forces and police concluded ongoing mopping up operations to finish off isolated pockets of LTTE resistance in the region, he said.
He said although there was no doubt that the East had been liberated it hadn’t been fully cleared of the LTTE menace.
Referring to the March 10 elections, he said he had consulted a number of local people of standing in the Batticaloa district. "What they say is although arms weren’t used by anybody to threaten voters the knowledge of possession of weapons was enough to serve as a deterrent to free thinking. No one can deny that. Helping to put one group in power is not my problem but, that party should have been encouraged to gain credibility among the people as a first step," he said.
He launched a scathing attack on the TNA. The Parliament itself wasn’t properly constituted, he said, asserting the Election Monitors of the EU, the Commonwealth, the PAFFREL and the CMEV would bear testimony to the fraudulent election of the 22 member TNA parliamentary group at the last general elections.
He urged the government not to create a similar situation in the East.
Pointing out the people had found fault with the government for going ahead with elections, the former MP urged the President to encourage all political parties to contest the forthcoming elections and also to ensure the disarming of all Para-military groups.
That would be appreciated by all including the international community, he said, any group which needed security should have been given government protection, he said.