SLMC ready to join any political force

*** Puts pre-conditions

*** Pledges cooperation to Eastern development programs

by P. Krishnaswamy

[email protected]

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) with its five parliamentarians representing the Eastern province would form a political affiliation with `any political force’ that is willing to fulfil some of its pre-conditions, party General Secretary Hasan Ali MP told the Sunday Observer.

Outlining their pre-conditions, he said that they want a separate administrative district carved out of the Kalmunai, Sammanthurai and Pottuvil areas which consist of four electorates where Tamil-speaking minorities were living pre-dominantly.

Their second pre-condition, he said, was independent representative status to the Muslim community in any future peace negotiations, in recognition of their distinct cultural and ethnic nature. Third is that in the event of a settlement of the national ethnic problem at any point of time in the future, the Muslim community should be considered for a separate devolution unit, with power sharing arrangements.

The last of the pre-conditions, he said, is discontinuation of all `land alienation’ and resettlement until a lasting solution is found, to facilitate identifying the lands of their community and preventing further ‘alienation’ of their traditional lands. Insinuating that the party would not hesitate to join the UPFA government, if it becomes possible to reach mutual consensus on addressing some of their major concerns, he said, that they would extend their cooperation to the current development programs being implemented in the eastern province so long as they were implemented impartially for the benefit of all communities.