CMEV sends all Sinhala monitors to Jaffna district

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 April 2004, 00:35 GMT]
A thirteen member-team of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) arrived in Jaffna Wednesday to monitor the April 2nd general election in the Jaffna electoral district. All monitors are from the major community and would be staying in Jaffna until the election is concluded, civil society sources said.

The CMEV team later in the day met the regional co-ordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and discussed in detail about the ground situation in the peninsula, sources said.







However, influential section of the Jaffna civil society expressed their deep concern to the CMEV in sending a group of all Sinhalese local monitors when a team of international monitors of the CMEV are already in Jaffna.

They feel one of the political parties contesting in the peninsula is behind this move, sources said.

Earlier EPDP leader and the lead candidate in Jaffna district Mr. Douglas Devananda is reported to have objected to election monitoring organizations for recruiting Jaffna Tamil monitors in their teams stating that they are all LTTE sympathizers, sources said.