TNA retracts decision to suspend agitation

by our Parliament Correspondents

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) yesterday opted to continue with its agitation inside Parliament in protest against the abduction of TRO officials. Just three hours earlier, they had decided against it.

The TNA earlier said it was calling off its disobedience campaign in the House in deference to the Geneva Ceasefire talks, but staged a walk out from the Chamber in protest against what they described as continued harassment of Tamil civilians.

The last Parliamentary sessions were continuously disrupted by TNA MPs in the immediate aftermath of the Joseph Pararajasinham killing and the party said it would carry out its campaign until the Government takes action to put a halt to killings and abductions in the North and East.

At the commencement of proceedings yesterday TNA MP Mavai Senathiraja making a special statement which contained a lengthy list of killings of Tamil civilians by alleged paramilitary forces in collusion with sections of the military said that even after the announcement of the Geneva talks, the killings and harassment of Tamils had not stopped.

He referred the alleged abduction of five TRO officials in Welikanda and claimed that further abductions of TRO men had taken place in Valachchenai. Senathiraja said the TNA would be forced to re-commence their agitation in Parliament if the present trend continued even though they decided to suspend the protest out of goodwill in lieu of the impending talks.

However a short while later at press briefing in the Parliament complex Senathiraja retracted their party's earlier decision and announced the intention to continue with its agitation in the House.