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| Sunday, 23 February 2003 |
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Memo to PM, Prabha : Consortium ask for more muscle to MoU by Ananth Palakidnar The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies of Jaffna in a memorandum to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader Velupillai Prabhakaran yesterday, asked both the government and the LTTE to strengthen the MoU with additional components of trust and confidence building measures. The consortium which comprises 51 member organisations participated in a hartal to create awareness of the MoU throughout the North and the East yesterday. Shops were closed and transportation came to a standstill. President of the consortium, S. Paramanathan told the Sunday Observer while appreciating the completion of one year of the MoU, much more had to be done to strengthen it further. "Some untoward incidents which took place in recent days in the Jaffna Peninsula has created fear among civilians in the North and the East of another break up of ceasefire. But fortunately the Government and the LTTE had sorted out the differences without leaving room for any serious problems. Therefore to ascertain the successful implementation of the MoU and to prevent any threat to the ceasefire, trust and confidence among the armed forces, LTTE and civilians in the North and the East should be enhanced in the future," he said. The office-bearers of the consortium handed over the memorandum with their request to the regional chief of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) with copies of it to be submitted to the President, Prime Minister, the LTTE chief and to the Royal Norwegian Government. According to Paramanathan, the memorandum contained suggestions for an effective implementation of the MoU and a call to expedite the relief measures in the areas badly hit by two decades of war. "Despite a few shortcomings in the implementation of the ceasefire, plenty of encouraging things have taken place in the peace process. The consortium is of the view that fresh and effective measures must be taken to prevent any type of misunderstanding between the armed forces and the LTTE in the future", he said. Meanwhile a special function was held at the office of the Government Agent of Jaffna to mark the first year of the MoU on Friday. Several senior officials and the representatives of various non governmental organisations participated in it. Financial donations were also made to 450 displaced families in the North by the government agent. |
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