SL President says ‘dangerous’ period ahead

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 August 2003, 18:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s President, Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge, addressing a workshop of members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party women organizations Friday, said that the country was facing the most dangerous period in its history as the United National Front government was preparing to “hand over the power to rule a part of the country to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in the name of taking forward the present peace process."

At the workshop, held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute in Colombo, Ms. Kumaratunge further said that the present peace of the UNF government is a “bogus peace” as it “deceived the masses of all communities in the country.”

Kumaratunge accused the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, of taking steps to hand over the administrative structure for the northeast province to the LTTE. She said that he was trying to give a separate country without using the word " Tamil Eelam" for the provincial structure.

She said that Mr.Wickremasinghe has failed to tell her what his government intended to hand over to the LTTE in the name of the interim administrative structure.

She repeated what she has been saying in recent months that the military power of the LTTE has increased to about 16,000 cadres, which, she said, stood only at 6,000 at the time of signing the ceasefire agreement last year, sources said.

Meanwhile, Mr.Wickremasinghe during his discussion with Ms. Kumaratunge on Thursday had told her that he would submit to her the final draft of the interim administrative structure proposal once he received the LTTE's response to the government proposal, which is expected by the end of this month, sources said.