Attempt to pay tribute to terrorist leader:

MPs want no confidence motion against TNA MP

by Manjula Fernando

Members of Parliament are agitating for a no confidence motion against TNA MP S. Sritharan for violating the Constitution in an attempt to pay tribute to a terrorist leader of a banned terror outfit in Parliament.

MP Sritharan in a statement read out on Tuesday in Parliament, when the second reading of the 2014 Budget debate was in progress glorified Vellupillai Prabhakaran as a freedom fighter.

His speech coincided with Prabhakaran’s birthday on November 26. It is also the day the LTTE commemorates the terrorists killed in battle, Mahaveer Day.

Plantation Minister and President’s Human Rights Special Envoy Mahinda Samarasinghe said the TNA MP could not take cover under parliamentary privileges to violate the laws of the country.

“Such conduct should not be condoned by anyone, especially parliamentarians because a number of MPs from both sides of the House had been brutally killed under Prabhakaran’s dictates or himself.”

He said the MP had violated the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution in making a speech in which he glorified a terrorist leader of an organisation which is banned in Sri Lanka and 31 other countries.

This statement is also an insult to India whose Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was brutally killed by the LTTE. Minister Samarasinghe said the UNP must help the Government to take stern action against this MP, since the LTTE also killed President Ranasinghe Premadasa, a UNP leader.

“I know for a fact that there are a number of instances in other Parliaments of the world where action had been taken despite privilege being given to Members of Parliament when they have crossed the line endangering the law and order of the country.”

The Minister said MP Sritharan is known to have close links with the LTTE diaspora and the statement was premeditated to commemorate Prabhakaran’s birthday and get the maximum publicity.

Deputy Speaker Chandima Weerakkody said that a ‘no confidence motion’ can be moved against the TNA MP who made the ‘mistake of glorifying a proscribed terror outfit in Parliament’.