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Viko on a war path with Sri Lanka

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

The biggest Indian admirer of Velupillai Prabhakaran and his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a banned movement in India, challenged Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and said bans cannot restrict the Tamil thirst for freedom.

Gopalaswamy Vaiko, the maverick General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagam (MDMK) was referring to the ban of the LTTE, who are also known as Tamil Tigers, by the Congress government of Dr. Man Mohan Singh , few weeks ago.

It was an extension of an earlier ban that resulted following the assassination of the husband of the ruling Congress Party head Sonia Gandhi’s husband , former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. An Indian court has convicted the LTTE leader Prabhakaran for the conspiracy of the murder.
Vaiko was giving leadership to the protest movement that was organized in few cities in India’s Southern state of Tamil Nadu to demand from the Indian government to send a delegation of parliamentarians to Sri Lanka to observe the “repression” of the minority of Tamils in the neighboring island nation.

Man Mohan Singh apparently did not cow down to Vaiko’s demand and instead Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera is scheduled to fly to New Delhi today to brief the Indian government about the current situation. National Security Advisor M.K. Narayan has been deputed by the P.M. to discuss the crisis that allegedly arose after the LTTE killed 64 civilians by two claymore bombs and the government bombed LTTE bases in retaliation. An LTTE controlled website said the bombs did not kill any Tamil civilians.

The Indian Prime minister took this decision after a telephone discussion with Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister and political opponent of Vaiko, Muthuvel Karunanidhi who leads the newly elected DMK government in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Vaiko’s anti-Sri Lanka campaign came in the midst of another crisis involving Vaiko. Five DMK MP’s have petitioned Indian Prime Minister Singh to protect the life of Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran from Vaiko. Vaiko said it was a false allegation concocted to end his political career.

Vaiko addressing the anti-Sri Lanka protest rally at Thammukkan grounds in Madurai last Friday(June 16), said that India should not help Sri Lanka in anyway in the present situation and any help to attack the LTTE would be conceived “ as a total attack on the whole Thamil community “ of India.

He said that Tamil Nadu was always with the Tamils in Sri Lanka and their cause for freedom. But observers said increasingly a lower number of people attended those rallies than during earlier times of Sri Lankan Tamil crisis. All rallies were organized by a Vaiko led outfit called Thamil Eelam Freedom Supporters Organization which also held similar anti-Sri Lanka rallies at other cities like Salem and Coimbatore.

The main argument of the speakers at those rallies was, since the LTTE had denied any connection with the Kebithigollewa civilian massacre of 64 people it was wrong for the Sri Lanka government to bomb LTTE bases without a proper investigation(EOM)
Please use : " Viko on a war path with Sri Lanka" as caption

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