The Frontline Socialist Party (FLSP) has condemned the closure of the Jaffna University for a week starting from today and the government’s alleged ban on any programmes to commemorate the LTTE cadres killed during the North East conflict.
The politburo of the FLSP, in a statement released to the media yesterday, said that banning of commemorations had been effected on the grounds that such programmes would be detrimental to the ethnic harmony and would promote separatism. However, the move had deprived the Tamil people of their right to commemorate the loss of their loved ones, it said.
"Hundreds of thousands of Tamils and Muslims perished in the conflict, and their relatives have a right to commemorate them just as their Sinhala counterparts do. That right could not be banned by the government, security forces or politicians. The resumption of conflict could be prevented not by banning such commemorations but by finding solutions to problems that caused them. Organisations such as the LTTE are not the cause, but the result of socio-economic deprivation. The government trying to escape from this truth would only worsen the prevailing situation. The government should not use force to impose bans on the Tamil people who are just recovering from a 30-year-long conflict that bruised, battered and bloodied this nation.
"The banning of the right of Tamil people to commemorate their dead kith and kin would further push the country towards ethnic disharmony and ultimately would compel them to demand a separate country. Decisions of this nature taken in view of furthering the narrow political objectives of some rulers would result in disasters where the innocent people would have to pay the price.
"We call upon all progressive sections of society to join us in condemning the government’s plan to use force to deprive the Tamil people of their right to commemorate their relatives who died in the conflict," the release said.
The Island