Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers said Monday they will resume their
struggle for independence for the Tamil people abandoning six years
of negotiations to end the conflict, but the military has played
down the threat.
The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) leader Velupillai
Prabakaran delivering his so-called Hero's Day speech in the rebel
held north said "six years have passed since we dedicated ourselves
to the ethnic conflict through peace talks."
He said "the uncompromising stance of Sinhala chauvinism has
left us with no other option but an independent state for the
people of Tamil Eelam (separate Tamil homeland)."
The LTTE leader said that the majority Sinhala leaders will
never put forward a resolution to the Tamil national question.
Commenting on the February 2002 ceasefire backed by the
Norwegian facilitators the Tiger leader said it has now become
defunct as the new government "hopes to decide the fate of the
Tamil nation using its military power."
Sri Lanka's Media Center for National Security said in a
statement that the elusive leader's speech "changes but a little
over the years -- the same threats, the same lamentations."
Describing Prabakaran as "a man who had seriously lost the
plot", the statement also refuted his views on such issues as Tamil
homeland, humanitarian needs, political framework, peace talks and
the LTTE's "need to be recognized as a government."
In his 2005 speech, Prabakaran gave the government a year to
offer a "reasonable" political solution or face an
"intensification" of the struggle for self-determination.
The LTTE during six years of negotiations agreed to probe a
federal solution but the analysts note that the Tiger leader's
policy speech indicates that his outfit may abandon the process of
negotiations.
The Norwegian effort began in 2000 saw the LTTE and the
government meeting face to face eight times for negotiations
since2002.
The process became marred by high cost of violence with the
government saying that over 3000 people died in the conflict
between December 2005 and October 2006.
More than 60,000 have been killed in Indian Ocean island since
the LTTE launched its separatist campaign in the mid-1980s.
(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2006)
