Sinhala Buddhist monks want monitors out

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 July 2003, 17:57 GMT]
Hundreds Buddhist monks protested in downtown Colombo Monday, demanding that Scandinavian peace monitors in Sri Lanka should leave the island immediately. The monks accused the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) of operating in cahoots with the Liberation Tigers against interests of the Sinhala people.



The march and demonstration against the SLMM was organised by the National Bikkhu Front, the largest Sinhala nationalist congregation of Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka.

Hundreds of saffron robed Buddhist monks began a march from the Bo Tree at Pettha in the heart of downtown Colombo Monday afternoon, shouting slogans against the SLMM.

“Get out of Sri Lanka”, the marching clergy shouted, as their protest procession moved through downtown Colombo towards the offices of the SLMM in Kollupitiya, an affluent suburb of the Sri Lankan capital.

The monks charged that the Scandinavian truce monitors were in the island to help the Liberation Tigers achieve their goal of a separate state.



The National Bikkhu Front presented a memorandum to the SLMM head office charging that the monitors were blatantly siding with the Liberation Tigers with an insidious view to eventually dismembering Sri Lanka for establishing a separate state for the Tamils.