PRESIDENT Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday (5) called on LTTE leader Velupillai Pabhakaran to surrender now with his small number of fighting cadres who had been cornered to the No-Fire Zone or face total annihilation within days if not in hours.
Addressing a function held at the Temple Trees to welcome 3,000 UNPers in the Colombo District to the SLFP fold, President Rajapaksa said the LTTE had come to the tail end of its 30-year barbaric and inhuman terror campaign.
“You have no option but to put down your arms and surrender with your brain washed cadres. It is now time for you to release all Tamil civilians and let them live in peace and harmony,” President Rajapaksa said.
The LTTE was fighting the armed forces behind the cover of the civilians in the No-Fire Zone. He has made the hapless civilians a human shield. But he must understand that he could not continue this any longer.
The humanitarian operations are not against Tamils.
The military campaign was started in August 2006 to save innocent farmers and civilians who were in thirsty and their paddy fields and farms scorched without water when the terrorist outfit closed the Mavil-Aru anicut, President Rajapksa stressed.
The objective of the armed forces was to give the people their rights back by liberating the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims from the clutches of the LTTE.
“We had to face tremendous pressure not only from the international front but from their local agents. Today the government has been able to emerge victorious because the people in length and breath of the country gave an overwhelming support to the armed forces and the government. Hence, the credit of winning the war must be with the people as well as with the heroic soldiers,” he emphasized.
The entire country had seen the amount of military hardware and equipment including chemical weapons, torpedoes, submarines and water jets (though improvised) that had been stacked by the LTTE. The terrorists had weapons that the armed forces did not have.
“Now it is the responsibility of the voter to tell the whole world that the step taken by the government to liberate the country from terrorism was correct. If you take a wrong decision the International Community would think that the government is on war disapproved by the people.
Your responsibility is to give the International Community that the decision of the government was correct. Otherwise, they get an opportunity to throw a life line to the LTTE and Prabhakaran who is drawing his last breath right now,” he pointed out.
The UNP went to town challenging the UPFA to hold elections in the prosperous and most industrialized Western Province if possible as it was the stronghold of the UNP.
When they were soundly beaten in the Eastern, North-Central, Sabaragamuwa, Central and North-Western provinces, they had various excuses.
The government has launched a massive development drive while prosecuting a war that consumes Rs. 177 billion. Upper Kotmale and Moragahakanda multi purpose irrigation projects, Norochcholai and Kerawalapitiya electricity generation schemes, Hambantota, Colombo South and Oluwil ports development projects and Hambantota International Airport projects are living examples to the major development programmes of the government.
The country enjoys receiving 24 hour electricity while other countries in the region like India cuts electricity for 4 hours and Nepal 18 hours, he added.
The food drive ‘Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu’ launched three years ago in advance to the current global food crisis has saved Sri Lanka from a food shortage and the country is self sufficient from rice.
The developed world the US and Europe have taken a leaf out of the ‘Mahinda Chinthana’ and asked the people to grow.
“Even the US first lady has started a home garden at the White House to grow vegetables and fruits. We started this three years ago,” President Rajapaksa said in lighter vein.
Ministers Maithripala Sirisena, Nimal Siripala De Silva, Dinesh Gunawardana, Bandula Gunawardana, Patali Champika Ranawaka, Wimal Weerawansa and Western Province Governor Alavi Moulana also spoke. (Courtesy: Daily Mirror)
LTTE Activists Obstruct Peace Rally in Melbourne
AN unruly situation emerged when a group of LTTE activists in Australia tried to obstruct a peace rally organized by a number of Sri Lankan residents in Melbourne on Saturday morning.
An association named 'Melbourne Lankan Students' organized a peaceful demonstration in front of the Melbourne State Parliament displaying banners demanding that the LTTE release civilians in the Wanni. Around 2,000 people took part in the demonstration.
The demonstration was staged for several hours before a group of LTTE activists who came to the location in their vehicles started parading the area displaying Tiger flags, rally organizers told Daily Mirror.
A clash broke out when a group of activists in one of the vehicles came face to face with a group of peace rally participants.
Several activists from both parties were reportedly injured whilst at least one was hospitalised. Melbourne State Police later intervened, eyewitnesses said. (Courtesy: Daily Mirror)
