JHU condemns Anti War Front statements

Chamikara Weerasinghe

COLOMBO: The Jathika Hela Urumaya yesterday said the Anti War Front should take the responsibility if any JHU member were killed or harmed by the LTTE in pursuance of the Front's current campaign to obtain international sympathy for the LTTE over the body of MP Nadarajah Raviraj.

Referring to the statement made by the Front's Kumar Rupasinghe at last Saturday's press conference charging the Government, the JHU and the JVP as responsible parties for the assassination of Raviraj in Colombo, JHU propaganda secretary Nishantha Warnasinghe said the Front was on a mission to play to the sentiments of the LTTE, to discredit the government and its good international image by making full use of the Tiger-friendly NGO media network.

The press conference had been jointly held at Hotel Nippon in Colombo by the Anti War Front, The Free Media Movement and The Hiru Group and several other NGOs. Warnasinghe said that this was not the first time that the country had experienced assassinations of this nature and many Tamil political leaders had been felled by the LTTE bullet.

The assassination of Appapillai Amirthalingam and Yogeshwaran showed similar characteristics. The terrorists have carried out these killings in keeping with their political agendas, to attract sympathy of the international community to boost their flagging image, he said.

"These are organised crimes that are committed to gain propaganda milage," he said. "The Jathika Hela Urumaya has condemned this incident," he said. "The agenda behind this incident came to light at the funeral procession.

There were more LTTE war slogans to be seen at the funereal that funeral banners expressing sympathy for Raviraj's demise. There were a few banners to condemn the killing," he pointed out. Slogans with LTTE demands such as 'open the A9 road', 'stop air attacks' ,' halt Security Forces operations in Jaffna' were seen in abundance at the funeral procession, Warnasinghe said.