Colombo: Sri Lanka Friday asked western
countries to crack down on Tamils trying to revive Tiger
separatist movement, which was crushed last year.
Declaring that Colombo will not tolerate moves by LTTE
remnants to form a transnational government, the new Prime
Minister D M Jayaratne said the government was aware of moves
by some sections of the 1.5 million ethnic Tamils living
abroad to revive separatist movement in the north.
"We will never allow any secessionist forces of any
western or any country to function on our land. Similarly we
also expect those countries to reciprocate and not allow the
Pro-LTTE groups in their country," he said.
Some pro-LTTE groups are also planning to hold
meetings in this regard later this month in one of the western
countries, Jayaratne told foreign correspondents during an
interaction.
"We have even received reports that one of the
Pro-LTTE group is planning to wage a military war and is
accumulating weapons for the purpose," he said while appealing
to the western countries not to permit such activities on
their soil.
"Western nations are not doing enough to stop LTTE
remnants from using their soil to plot against us," he said.
In his first major interaction with media, Jayratne
assured that emergency provisions in place in the island since
1983 would be gradually scaled back in the coming months as
the security situation in the country had improved after the
defeat of Tamil Tigers.
However, he cautioned that Tamils living overseas were
planning to resurrect the Tiger moment by using some dormant
militants within the country.
But at the same time the Prime Minister pitched for
devolution, saying that the process would bring in greater
equality in the society.
"Yes I am in favour of devolution. It will minimise
the gaps in the society and bring about greater equality,"
Jayaratne said.
The Prime Minister who is also the religious affairs
minister said solutions could be found to remove vices in the
society through applying the tenets of Buddhism, Hinduism,
Christianity and other religions.
Jayaratne who undertook pioneering work as the
plantation minister years ago when he incentivised savings and
encouraged the estate workers to reduce alcohol consumption,
felt the process can be encouraged all over the country.
"When I was the (plantation) minister, the
government provided Rs 1 lakh as grant for construction of
houses for the plantation workers with the rest to be raised
by the families themselves."
"We took a decision to make it mandatory for the
workers to save some portion of their salary and provided them
a pass book for the purpose.
Though it met with some resistance the families found
it to be an advantage as they had savings," he said.
Jayaratne said the savings also accrued as a result
of reduction in alcohol consumption by the workers through
persuasion and awareness drive that benefited the families.
The Prime Minister said as an incentive for those
undertaking savings, the government gave small plots of land
to nearly 800 families in the hill areas.
In reply to a question on the emergency regulations
in the country, the Prime Minister assured that they would be
gradually reduced every month.
Several provision of the emergency legislation
which was passed by Parliament earlier this week for its
continuation for another month have been relaxed.
The regulations regarding restriction on imposition
of curfew, holding public meetings and gatherings, printing
certain literature and providing the householder's names to
the police have been relaxed.
Jayaratne however did not rule out the possibility of
restoring the provisions of emergency legislation if the
situation so warranted in the country.
PTI
First Published: Friday, May 07, 2010, 18:44