JVP says will campaign against joint tsunami aid mechanism

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 April 2005, 05:22 GMT]
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s main coalition partner, said Monday it will launch a massive campaign to oppose the proposed Joint Mechanism between the Liberation Tigers and Colombo for distributing Tsunami aid in the island’s northeast. “The campaign will start from the capital and will be held in all major provincial towns to educate the people about the dangers the Joint Mechanism poses to the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”, a party spokesman said. JVP’s opposition to the Joint Mechanism will be the central theme of the huge May Day rally the Marxist party is preparing to hold in Colombo, according to him.

The JVP says that it has been kept in the dark about the proposed Joint Mechanism and that it has not been shown the drafts of the proposal that are being discussed by Colombo and LTTE through the Norwegian facilitators. However, it insists that handing over any foreign Tsunami aid to the Liberation Tigers would pose a serious threat to the island nation’s fragile sovereignty. Meanwhile, President Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) claimed in a press report Tuesday that there was no rift in its alliance with the radical Marxists.