TNA Calls for Immediate Ceasefire and Talks

(January 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) wishes to bring to the urgent attention of the international community the current dire situation facing the Tamil civilian population in Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) administered areas. Currently there are over 360,000 IDPs out of a total population of nearly 500,000 people in LTTE controlled areas. This entire population is living within an area of about 400 square kilometers.

In addition to ordering all United Nations and other humanitarian NGOs out of LTTE administered areas since September 2008, the Sri Lankan State has also imposed stringent economic, medical and food embargoes resulting in the severe lack of basic items required by the civilians.

In addition to this already critical condition, due to the targeted bombing campaigns by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces on IDP camps and other public buildings that could provide shelter, IDPs have been forced to seek refuge under trees, on the roads, and even in the jungles to avoid being killed. Most of these areas are flooded due to the recent monsoon rains.

Tamil civilians including children and infants have been killed or grievously injured in substantial numbers. Their houses, farms crops and plantations have been destroyed. Their means of livelihood have been destroyed and they have been rendered destitute. In the last 20 days alone 66 civilians have been killed and 263 civilians have been grievously injured.

This military campaign is taking place whilst the Sri Lankan State has been unwilling to take any meaningful steps in keeping with the mandates given by the overwhelming majority of the Tamil people to the TNA at the last two consecutive general elections. This only demonstrates that the Sri Lankan State is not committed to an acceptable political solution to the Tamil National Question. This further demonstrates the reality that the Sri Lankan State is only committed to a military solution.

It is the considered view of the TNA that the Sri Lankan State is prosecuting the current war in pursuit of an ideology, namely the assertion of Sinhala Buddhist supremacist nationalism, and in order to achieve that objective a process of Genocide of the Tamil people is in progress. The inhuman conditions and the daily killings to which the Tamil civilians in LTTE controlled areas are being subjected to are only the more obvious elements of this process.

Under these circumstances the TNA urgently appeals to the international community to prevail upon the Sri Lankan State to bring the war to an immediate end. The TNA also calls upon the international community to use its good offices to bring the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to the negotiating table. - Sri Lanka Guardian