Lanka issue: Karunanidhi buys more time

(January 26, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, who urged the Centre on Friday ‘to intervene in the Sri Lankan issue today itself’, said on Saturday that the general council of the DMK would meet before 15 February and take a decision on the Lankan Tamils issue.

Speaking at a function organised here by the Sanga Thamizh Peravai to honour him for declaring that Tamil New Year would begin from the month Thai, the Chief Minister, quoting a literary work, said he was like a man without hands and dumb.

On the resolution adopted in the Assembly asking the Centre to act immediately to stop the war in Sri Lanka, he said, ‘We know what we can do and what the Centre can do.’

Requesting the Union government not to give room to those who were trying to politicise the issue, he said, ‘though I am attending the function, my mind is occupied by the Sri Lankan Tamils, who are not able to live peacefully in their country. How are we going to save them?’

Earlier in the day, Karunanidhi said in a statement that the DMK would finalise its stand on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue at intra-party meeting, and would announce the decision after consulting allies and other parties.

He was reacting to PMK founder S Ramadoss’s observation that the Sri Lankan Tamils issue was not an intra-party matter to be decided by the ruling party’s executive council.

Describing his party as a democratic organisation, Karunanidhi said that though he could decide on some major issues on his own, he did not conduct himself like a dictator.

Karunanidhi said that all contributions to the Sri Lankan Tamils Relief Fund, instituted by the State government, were received through cheques. They had been accounted for, the Chief Minister said, responding to AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on the issue.

Referring to Jayalalithaa’s clarification that she had not expressed support for the Sri Lankan army, Karunanidhi said this was not the first time she was withdrawing her statement. - Sri Lanka Guardian