Jaffna to launch pro-peace signature campaign on 4th February

[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 January 2004, 12:26 GMT]
A signature campaign to collect signatures for a memorandum to be sent to the international community with six demands related to the Tamil national question would be launched on February 4 in the Jaffna peninsula, according to a decision taken at the conference held Wednesday afternoon at the Jaffna Navalar Cultural Hall, sources said.

February 4 is the Sri Lanka's Independence day.

The six demands that will be included in the Memorandum are:

• The international community should recognize the Tamil freedom struggle
• Sri Lanka Army should leave the traditional homeland of Tamils
• Action should be taken to restart the stalled peace talks ending the power struggle between the two main political parties in the south.
• An interim administrative structure for the northeast province should be handed over to the LTTE on the basis of the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposals submitted by the LTTE.
• The countries concerned should lift the ban on the LTTE.
• LTTE should be accepted as the sole representative of Tamils

Jaffna University Students Federation President Mr.P.Paheerathan presided over the conference, which was attended by representatives of Ceylon Tamil Teachers’ Union, Jaffna District Peoples Associations’ Forum, Jaffna Non-Governmental Organizations Consortium, Jaffna University Teachers Union and several civil groups, sources said.

Mr.A.Panchalingam of the CTTU, Jaffna University Professor S.K.Sitrampalam, Senior Lecturer Mr.K.Sithambaranathan, Professor V.C.Sivanathan, former Jaffna Municipal Commissioner Mr.C.V.K.Sivagnanam and several others also spoke.

Instructions were given at the conference to the participants to commence collecting signatures from general public from February 4. Memoranda with signatures collected would be sent to all foreign embassies in Colombo in addition to Donor countries, sources said.