President on course to eliminate terrorism - Labour Minister

Chamikara Weerasinghe

HAMBANTOTA : President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken the correct decision to flush LTTE terrorism from the country within the course of this year.

Labour and Manpower Minister Athauda Seneviratna said unlike most leaders the country had in the past, President Rajapaksa was not submitting to LTTE threats or biased international positions.

Minister Seneviratna said this at Hambantota where he opened a Central Employees' Trust Fund office for the district recently, in keeping with the programme in the Mahinda Chaithanaya to decentralise the ETF throughout the island.

This was the 14th centralised ETF scheme office.

People can obtain their ETFs directly from these offices without having to go to Colombo.

He said that some Presidents in the country were said to have offered favours, given money and sometimes even weapons to the LTTE out of fear for the terrorists.

"But President Rajapaksa is taking action to flush out LTTE terrorism by taking a firm stand," he said.

He said the Security Forces had liberated the Eastern Province including Vakarai from LTTE terrorists after much sacrifice.

"Several soldiers lost their lives in the process of liberating Vakarai. The nation owes the Armed Forces their gratitude for their achievement."

"It is unfortunate that there are some elements who try to belittle the victory over the terrorists at Vakarai," Seneviratna said.

"Some of them had said that the Security Forces had bombarded a deserted field, thus belittling their victory,"

"However, they are destined to get rejected by the public sooner or later," the Minister said.