TNA, LTTE meet on IA proposals

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 August 2003, 17:05 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is conducting individual meetings with constituents of the Tamil National Alliance to inform them about the LTTE’s planned discussions with constitutional experts--and to seek the TNA’s suggestions--on the Sri Lankan government’s proposals for an Interim Administration for the North-East, sources said.

The LTTE is currently in the process of analyzing the Sri Lankan government’s draft proposals for the Interim Administration in the North-East and sources said that it will have an important meeting with legal and constitutional experts in Paris, France, in a week or two to come up with its own counter proposals.

A ten-member group of the LTTE, headed by Mr. S.P. Thamilchelvan, the LTTE’s political head, will leave the Vanni to attend the Paris meeting within the next two weeks, the sources said.

The meetings with the TNA’s constituents are to explain the planned Paris meeting and to seek the TNA’s suggestions on the IA, the sources said.

Such a meeting with the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, a constituent of the TNA, was held in Kilinochchi on Wednesday, and parliamentarian Mr. Ponnambalam Gajendrakumar of the ACTC also participated, sources in the Vanni said.

Another meeting with the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF-Suresh wing), a party under the TNA umbrella, was held Thursday. The party’s general secretary, Mr. Suresh Premachandran, and its Vanni district parliamentarian, Mr. Sivashakthi Ananthan, met with Mr. Thamilchelvan, the political head of the LTTE.

According to Mr. Ananthan, the meeting, which took place at 4 p.m. and lasted for about half an hour, was smooth, and Mr. Thamilchelvan told him about the planned meeting in Paris and that LTTE would consult the TNA again after the Paris meeting.

Mr. Thamilchelvan told the EPRLF that the IA should be a workable arrangement with adequate powers to solve the problems of the displaced people and the Jaffna fishermen, and to bring normality to the people’s lives, which has not been established in the 18 months since the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, according to Mr. Ananthan.

The LTTE is expected to hold a similar meeting with another constituent of the TNA, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) on Friday, and Mr. Selvam Adaikalanathan, the TELO’s Vanni parliamentarian, will meet with Thamilchelvan, sources said.