Tamils compelled to resume ''freedom struggle for statehood'': LTT

Colombo, Feb 22 (UNI) Blaming President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government of trying to find a military solution to the protracted ethnic conflict, the LTTE today said the Tamils were compelled to ''resume their freedom struggle'' to achieve ''statehood'' in the island nation.

''The Sri Lankan government's ongoing war of aggression, aimed at subjugation of the Tamil people under the guise of ''war on terrorism'', will add to the bloodstained pages of the island's history. It has also compelled the Tamil people to resume their freedom struggle to realise their right to self-determination and to achieve statehood,'' the LTTE said in a statement released tonight to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Oslo-brokered ceasefire agreement.

The statement described the agreement as ''a unique document in the search for an end to the national conflict.'' ''The marginalisation of the 2002 CFA, which would have been a step towards just peace, has destroyed the confidence of the Tamil people and their expectations regarding future peace efforts,'' the Tigers said.

Giving their account of the death in the ethnic conflict, the LTTE statement claimed that ''more than 1500 civilians have been killed and over 500 disappeared and approximately 300,000 people still live in the IDP camps and welfare centres'' while another 210,000 people have been displaced due to military operations last year.

''The worsening of the humanitarian and the human rights conditions despite the five years of CFA has pushed the Tamil people to the brink,'' the statement said, adding that only a neutral and constructive role by international community can contribute to a just and lasting peace.

''Any involvement that is partial and attempts to marginalise or weaken one side will only lead to an irreversible process of deterioration,'' the rebels said, pointing out that the parity of status and balance of forces between warring parties ''is essential for the survival of a peace agreement.'' The LTTE reactions have come barely a day after Lankan government's Defence Affairs spokesman and Minister of Foreign Employment, Keheliya Rambukwella, had said in Colombo that the Rajapaksa government would hit back ''if the sovereignty, integrity and national security are threatened'' regardless the existence of any supplementary agreements in the island.

''As far as the government is concerned, the national interest, sovereignty and national security come first. If it is threatened it will be responded at any stages despite whatever the supplementary agreements that are in existence,'' Minister Rambukwella said yesterday.

He, however, had said that Mr Rajapaksa was working out a suitable political package in consultation wit the other political parties represented in the Parliament.

Meanwhile, the government's former Marxist ally, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), today held a rally in the heart of Colombo for the formal abrogation of the ceasefire agreement and expulsion of the Nordic truce monitors from Sri Lanka.

Thousands of JVP partymen and supporters gathered at the Lipton Circus in Colombo and urged the Rajapaksa government to abrogate the ceasefire agreement calling it a document that has strengthened the militarily capabilities of the LTTE.

UNI