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PRABHAKARAN MAN CHANDRASEKARAN ANNOUNCES UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR RANIL WICKREMESINGHE [/FONT]
One of Chandrasekaran’s(L) first acts as a Minister was to meet Prabhakaran in Kilinochchi
(Photo:TamilNet)
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
February 18, 06.45 AM: The Upcountry People’s Front leader Periyasamy Chandrasekaran who was engaged in one of the most unsuccessful political adventures to build up a grand alliance of upcountry Tamils with the separatist political movement in Sri Lanka’s’s Eastern and Northern Provinces led by Velupillai Prabhakaran announced he would support the leadership of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in the forthcoming General Elections unconditionally.
Few weeks ago, all major leaders of the upcountry plantation Tamils totally rejected Chandrasekaran’s political adventure pointing out the problems faced by the Indian origin Tamils of upcountry were totally different from those experienced by the Northern and Eastern Provinces Tamils.
Chandrasekaran is not alone among pro-Prabhakaran Tamils to support Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. While issuing a guarded statement that they would negotiate peace with any powerful political party that would form the next government in Sri Lanka the Eastern military leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Col.) Karuna Amman indirectly appealed to the Sinhalese to put Ranil Wickremesinghe in the power seat, last week.
In addition to his repeated warnings that the LTTE would go to war if the government did not agree to the interim government proposals by the terrorist outfit Periyasamy Chandrasekaran has been alleged to have recruited upcountry Tamil youth for the LTTE military training. Opposition Tamil political parties like the EPDP opposed to the government as well as intelligence reports of the security forces indicate , the trade union leader cum parliamentarian of the Upcountry People’s Front has been engaged in the unconstitutional activities of recruiting plantation Tamil youth for separatist military training.
But , probably as some pointed out, the expedient Prime Minister who is dependent on the minorities to form a government was not only extremely tolerant of such politicians as Chandrasekaran in his cabinet but also rejected the opposition JVP and the Patriotic National Movement to remove him from the cabinet under section 157 of Sri Lanka’s republican constitution.