GTF won’t support separate state, Surendiran tells MPs

Global Tamil Forum (GTF) Spokesman Suren Surendiran yesterday (12) said that if he supported a separate state he wouldn’t have been in Sri Lanka.

The UK based GTF representative said so when SLPP MP Sarath Weerasekera, a former Chief of Staff of the Navy asked him whether he supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that waged war for a separate state in Northern and Eastern Provinces of the country.

The former Public Security Minister raised the issue at a meeting held in the Committee Room 2 of Parliament, chaired by Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena.

The GTF delegation is here for talks with the government and other political parties to reach post-war consensus on how to bring communities together.

Political sources said that the GTF met members of Parliament to brief them about the ongoing process. Surendiran has explained the circumstances leading to them seeking a consensus with the Buddhist clergy as they spearheaded protests against some previous initiatives, including the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, enacted in 1988, meant to solve the ethnic issue.

MP Weerasekera has pointed out that the Buddhist clergy came forward whenever the unitary state of the country was threatened. Pointing out that the Buddhist clergy protected the country for the last 2500 years — a period during which we experienced 17 invasions, the Navy veteran said that the LTTE fought for a separate state.

Weerasekera said: “Terrorism is defined as killing innocents to achieve a political aim. So whether the cause for terrorism is justifiable or not terrorism cannot be justified. Although we comprehensively defeated terrorism we find that western countries allow commemoration of the LTTE.”

When MP Weerasekera asked Surendiran whether he supported the LTTE, the GTF official said that they were not for a separate state. If they were for a separate state, he wouldn’t have been here, he has said (SF)