Tamil political leaders express concerns over delay in a political solution

Heads of three Tamil political parties yesterday met the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai and expressed concerns over the government’s failure to find an early solution to the ethnic problem.

The Tamil leaders represented the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF)-Pathmanaba Wing.

V. Anandasangaree of TULF, D. Sidarthan of PLOTE and T. Sritharan of EPRLF-Pathmanaba Wing have strongly urged that finding an early solution to the ethnic problem will be the only answer to many problems.

“A solution acceptable to the minorities should be found and the entire civil administration should be left in the hands of the civil administrators without the Government interfering in everything,” the three Tamil political parties have said in a statement.

The statement issued soon after the discussion with Mathai said “The people of the North and the East still undergo severe hardships not only due to the after effects of the war but also more due to the government, trying to implement its own agenda of settling people of one ethnic group amidst another ethnic group, deliberately to change the demographic pattern of the area.”

The Tamil parties have said the government has no plans for demilitarization and that the forces were involved in civil administration.

The Tamil politicians have also raised issues pertaining to the coal power project in Sampur, re-demarcation of administrative districts and divisions and the authority over lands during the discussion.