War needs to continue, dependancy on the West bypassed - Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 August 2008, 10:16 GMT]
"The war against the LTTE will continue without a break until the capture of the Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu", declared Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Thursday while addressing a public meeting following the inauguration of an irrigation project in Polonnaruwa in the North Central Province. Mr. Rajapaksa also proclaimed that the era of rulers who were dependent on the West was over with his regime in Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, Somawanse Amarasinghe, the leader of the Sinhala extreme nationalist JVP, charged that Mr. Rajapaksa has 'surrendered the sovereignty of Sri Lanka' to India.

Rajapaksa's statement on Thursday has come as Sri Lankan forces claimed to have brought Muzhangkaavil, a key village in the Poonakari division of the Ki'linochchi district, under their control. Civilians in the village had displaced from the entire village, a few days ago.

"I will not allow division of the country under my regime. My government will not budge an inch from the ongoing military operation to capture the districts under the control of LTTE," said Mahinda Rajapaksa in Polonnaruwa.

In a contrasting speech, Mr. Somawanse Amarasinghe, who addressed a conference at the Mahaweli Centre on Thursday charged that the Indian officials were intervening in the affairs of the country as if Sri Lanka was another state of India.

"Unlike the previous rulers of Sri Lanka, who were at least concerned of the sovereignty of Sri Lanka, the current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, while wearing a banner of patriotism around his neck, has sacrificed the sovereignty of the country to India," Mr. Amarasinghe said.

Admitting that his party was being referred as 'anti-India party,' the JVP leader blamed the foreign policy of India for such perception. The JVP leader said Rajapaksa was meeting Indian envoys every week.

Meanwhile, Divaina, a Sinhala extremist paper run by Upali Group which publishes the Island paper, reported Friday to its Sinhala readership that the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, had recently submitted a report to the Indian government indicating that the Tigers were losing on the war front. Sri Lankan air attacks and 'scarcity of military supplies' to the Tigers were cited as the main causes for the 'defeat' in the report, according to the paper, which said that the RAW assessment was based on its own satellite-surveillance and intelligence network.