Sri Lanka Tamil leader seeks PM's help to solve conflict

Colombo: A veteran Sri Lankan Tamil politician has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's help in resolving the ethnic conflict in SL on the basis of the Indian model of 'devolution of power'.   

 

“I am one who had been campaigning for an Indian model as  an alternative to a federal solution,” V Anandasangaree wrote  in a letter to Modi.   Anandasangaree, 81, is the leader of the Tamil United  Liberation Front (TULF) and a former Member of Parliament.   His opposition to the LTTE and its cause has forced him to  remain outside the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main  Tamil political party in Sri Lanka.   

 

Referring to the TNA leaders' meeting with Modi in New  Delhi, Anandasangaree in his letter describes the links  between the LTTE and the TNA.   “Indian Prime Minister's advice would be important to find  a solution to the Tamil problem but finding a solution was not  the monopoly of TNA. Hence action must be taken to consult  various political parties of Tamils and Tamil-speaking  people,” Anandasangaree wrote in the letter.   

 

He has sought Modi's support to convene a meeting of all Tamil parties with the possibility of discussing the Indian  model of 'devolution of power' as a solution to the  three-decade-old  ethnic conflict between Sri Lanka's 

Tamil  minority and the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.