JVP to agitate against Norway's role

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 March 2000, 17:25 GMT]
The Janata Vimukthi Peramuna, (JVP) the Marxist party that led two unsuccessful insurrections to capture state power in Sri Lanka, threatened today to hold country wide demonstrations against Norwegian mediation to end the island's ethnic conflict.

@@file1@@Adressinmg a press conference in downtown Colombo today, Mr.Tilvin Silva, the general secretary of the JVP, said that his party did not approve of Norway's role in resolving Sri Lanka's's conflict because the Oslo accord on the Palestine peace process was really partial to Israel.

The JVP leader asserted that the government should make public its dealings with the opposition and the Norwegian government about starting negotiations with the Liberation Tigers to bring the war to an end and introduce constitutional reforms for regional autonomy for the Tamils.

He argued that all reforms to the Sri Lankan constitution in the past had been made without any mandate from the people of the country.

Mr.Silva claimed that the Tamils wanted to live together with the other communities in Sri Lanka but that they should be granted equal rights.

The JVP leader said that the first demonstration of the country wide protest program against Norwegian mediation planned by his party would be held at the Lipton Circus near downtown Colombo on March 16.