"The South's responsibility for LTTE killings in the North" A Lanka Sama Samaja Party statement, September 26'h The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's terrorism, targeting the democratic political leadership in the North has reached a new high in the recent months. The political forces in the South have with each terrorist killing piously uttered their condolences and stopped at that. They have made no attempt to understand the underlying meaning of these new killings.
Whereas in earlier times the Tigers (LTTE) had shown concern for the popular reaction to any killing by them within the Tamil community, the recent killings were apparently done in complete disregard of public opinion.
The people of the North and their political parties are justified in concluding that they remain exposed to these killings solely because the political parties in the South have betrayed the hope, trust and confidence which they had placed in the political solution to the ethnic crisis that was projected by the Peoples Alliance
These killings must be viewed in their political context. The people who in their totality left Jaffna in the face of the advancing Riviresa troops returned to their localities after the LTTE was dislodged from its urban strongholds. This return was in the face of LTTE opposition. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), despite its initial hesitation and mistrust, entered the local government election fray in order to help re-establish the civil administration in the North. This was done in the teeth of LTTE opposition, but the LTTE was unable to carry out its killings because the people stood with these democratic forces.
It is only with the growing disenchantment of the people and the feeling of being betrayed that the LTTE was able to kill with political impunity the Mayor of Jaffna, Sarojini Yogeswaran of the TULF. The killing of her successor, P. Sivapalan,
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was carried out in a manner which showed no concern for the lives of other Tamils who co-operated with the TULF in the maintenance of the civil administration.
What should be of special significance is that in this act of terrorism the LTTE had the willing co-operation of persons highly placed in that same administration.
Other Tamil parties which had entered the peace process were not spared. It was only medical expertise that saved Douglas Devananda [Eelam Peoples Democratic Party leader - Ed.] from the attempt made on his life. The Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) lost one of its Members of Parliament who was killed by a claymore mine that did not spare those who accompanied him in his jeep.
These killings were carried out in a situation in which the people of the North felt justified in concluding that no trust could any longer be placed in the promised political solution. They saw that the United National Party [UNP - former ruling party and now largest opposition party - Ed.] had given every indication that it would not support in parliament the PA's package.
They saw that the PA made the UNP attitude an excuse to shelve the package and permit its political nincompoops to talk about a Presidential election on the basis of political success in the clearing of the highway to Kilinochci no matter how ephemeral such success could be. It was in the face of these simpleton attitudes and strategies of both the UNP and the PA that the LTTE thought that it could start liquidating its political opponents without a backlash from the people. The LTTE sees that the point has been reached when it could, in its unmistakably Fascist manner, convincingly denounce the victims of their terror as betrayers of the Tamil cause.
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party warns the PA in particular that a turning point has been reached, and unless there is renewed commitment to the political situation it has advanced, the peace process will be wrecked. Such commitment can be convincingly demonstrated only by presenting to Parliament for adoption the PA's draft Constitutional amendment.
There is no reason as to why PA-UNP consensus cannot be reached on it through an adoption of the UNP's amendments to the PA draft. Not to do this and to engage in petty political bickering will only strengthen the LTTE. *
Colombo, 26th September 1998 23