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| Tamil Tigers to Resume Independence Struggle |
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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) |
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