Tiger proscription will prevent terrorist activities - EPDP leader

Social Services and Social Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda speaking on the proscription of the LTTE, said while the EPDP appreciated and valued the decision arrived by the Government to ban the LTTE, it was a decision of extreme importance.

He said had the proscription been made earlier, many sad instances could have been prevented.

However even late, it was a timely step, Devananda who is also the General Secretary of EPDP and Chairman of the Special Task Committee Northern Province said.

The Minister said the lack of response on the part of the Tigers for peace talks and their refusal to join the democratic mainstream had compelled the Government to arrive at this decision.

“Using over 200,000 innocent civilians as a human shield is an unpardonable terrorist activity,” the Minister said.

He said the LTTE had been proscribed at a time when they were engaged in slaying those with alternate ideas, those who refused to pay extortions and those who did not support them.

The Tiger proscription can be described as an act of redeeming the Tamil people from the cruelties inflicted upon them by the Tigers, Devananda said.

He added that Tigers had never made a genuine attempt to bring a honourable political solution to the problem of the Tamil people.

The Tigers had a history of kicking out many opportunities for arriving at a political solution to the problem of Tamils.

At every opportunity for a political settlement, they used such opportunities to build up their authority to power. Tigers never worked for the well-being of the Tamil people.

Therefore, a political solution to the problem, the Tamil people aspire for, could never be obtained from the Tigers, he said.

The proscription of the Tiger organisation would help prevent terrorist activities committed by the Tigers.

“Though it was necessary to take steps to suppress the activities of the Tiger terrorists, no room should be left to bring harm to innocent Tamil people. It was because of this that the EPDP had been quite for sometime saying that the problems of the Tamil people were different from those of the Tigers,” he said.

The Minister stated the liberation to the Tamil people would only dawn when Tiger terrorism was wiped out and democracy reigned supreme over terrorism.