Liberals condemn assassination of Nadarajah Raviraj

COLOMBO: The Liberal Party of Sri Lanka strongly condemns the assassination of Mr. Nadarajah Raviraj, Member of Parliament. a press release issued by the Secretary of the Liberal Party Kamal Nissanka further states as follows:

"By fate Mr. Raviraj had to become a representative of the Tamil National Alliance though he was in fact a member of the accredited Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) which addresses grievances of the Tamil population in a democratic and civilized manner.

Though the front line leaders and parliamentarians of the TULF in the calibre of Mr. A. Amitrhalingam, Mr.Yogeswaran, Mr Sam Thambimuttu and Mr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, had sacrificed their precious lives to the guns and bullets of Vanni Tigers, it is sad that present TNA Members of Parliament had become sole agents of the Vanni Tigers before the eyes of the public through their words and deeds".

"In the recent past these henchmen of the Vanni Tigers started their one sided demonstrations against the government for "disappearances". All these demonstrators including the TNA members were silent when the Tigers killed seven Karuna faction members in the outskirts of Colombo few months ago.

When the Vanni Tigers attempted to kill the army commander, the Pakistan High Commissioner and Minister, Douglas Devananda, the TNA remained silence. It is a well known fact that the recent gun culture was launched by the Vanni Tigers just after the signing of the ill-fated ceasefire agreement in 2002, killing more than 60 members of the intelligence services culminating to the assassination of Minister, Luxman Kadirgarmar, Lt General Parami Kulatunga and Kethish Loganathan of the Peace Secretariat".

"The recent massacre of innocent civilians and unarmed sailors of Kebithigollawa and Habarana cannot be justified by any means."

"The Liberal Party of Sri Lanka understands that a group from Batticaloa has already declared the responsibility for the killing of Mr Raviraj and even the LTTE statement in the Tamilnet Website indicates that the assassination had been carried out by 'paramilitaries'".

"The Liberal Party stresses that the Vanni Tigers do not stop the gun culture, suicide culture and pistol gang culture which they have launched since the signing of the ceasefire, it is obvious that numerous killer gangs would mushroom in Sri Lanka".

"Whatever the context may be the Liberals salute Nadarajah Raviraj because he was one of the Tamil politicians who attempted to understand the Sinhalese psyche in framing up with an amicable solution to the ongoing conflict.

The Liberal Party of Sri Lanka further stresses that in the absence of Karuna faction, future negotiations would be futile because the so-called gun culture as at present is not a sole monopoly of Vanni Tigers."