Probe NGO links with the LTTE, JVP tells President Kumaratunga

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 February 2005, 06:25 GMT]
Describing the field hospitals, ambulances and generators as "war-like materials brought in by the NGOs for the LTTE", the Marxist extreme Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a major coalition partner of the ruling Freedom Alliance government, has urged President Chandrika Kumaratunga in a letter Tuesday to probe "into the activities of foreign NGOs, their staff and foreign volunteers" working in Sri Lanka's tsunami-hit areas. The JVP's letter has come as an apparent bid to divert the public attention from their widening rift with President Kumaratunga, who according to reports, was getting ready to retaliate the JVP for its recent remarks against her.

Responding to the humanitarian cry for international assistance a number of well-reputed international NGOs landed in Sri Lanka with their men and materials to help urgent rescue and relief efforts.

They moved into the tsunami-hit areas well before the government assistance reached there.

"The Tigers are enhancing their fighting capabilities as they are receiving war material via non-governmental organizations who are helping the Tigers' military build up under the pretext of providing humanitarian aid," Propaganda Secretary of the JVP, Wimal Weerawansa, has said in the letter to the President.

"We hope that you, as the person responsible for national security, will take immediate steps in this regard," the JVP Propaganda Secretary has urged the President.

Describing the field hospitals, ambulances and generators as war-like materials brought in by these NGOs for the LTTE, the JVP said that the government should decide on a list of what humanitarian materials was and what not.

The JVP is notably furious with President Kumaratunga as she has sidelined the JVP from any of her task force that handled the post-tsunami distribution of relief aid and the planning reconstruction work, diplomatic sources said.

The President has also personally taken charge of rebuilding the townships, mainly in the Southern province, thus targeting to swallow the main vote-bank of the JVP, the sources added.