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Thursday, 19 September 2013 00:13 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Addressing a specially convened news conference in Iranamadu in the former rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi on the last day of campaigning ahead of Saturday’s poll, a reformed Pathmanathan alias KP said the TNA election manifesto was separatist in content. It was KP’s first press conference after his surrender in May 20009 and subsequent rehabilitation.
“This is merely the Vaddukoddai Resolution and the Oslo Declaration in code,” Pathmanathan told journalists, some of whom had been specially ferried to Kilinochchi by the military.
Speaking to the press at the brightly coloured Sencholai Children’s Home he now runs, the former LTTE strongman charged that the TNA was attempting to win the Northern Provincial poll in order to lobby the international community and not to help the Tamil people.
“The TNA is attempting to send the young Tamil people back to war with its policies,” he said, urging the people of the north to accept the 13th Amendment as a final political settlement to the conflict.
Hailing President Mahinda Rajapaksa as a ‘great leader’ of good calibre and an ‘honest man,’ KP said he had confidence in the President’s ability to resolve the Tamil issue. “The TNA is calling for an international inquiry against Sri Lankan soldiers. How can they expect the President to meet their demands when they are working against our country?” Pathmanathan charged.
He urged Tamils to work with the majority community to ‘gradually’ have their needs met. “If you extend the hand of friendship to the majority community, it will solve everything,” the former LTTE Weapons Chief said.
The former rebel leader said he was confident that the Government could resolve the issues facing the Tamils and rejected calls for international intervention. “The past is the past, war is war – both sides suffered,” he said.
Highly critical of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam and the diaspora, KP quipped that the purported LTTE Government in exile was like the defeated rebel organisation’s ‘past pupils association’. “It is true I started it,” KP said, adding that the TGTE had now lost its relevance. “They are not really interested in addressing Tamil issues,” he said.
Pathmanathan said the northern people had a golden opportunity when they go to the polls on Saturday (21). “Don’t miss this opportunity, don’t listen to TNA lies,” he said.
‘KP’ who functioned as the Tigers’ main arms procurer during the war was captured overseas and detained by the Sri Lankan Government in 2009. The Government, which has repeatedly claimed Pathmanathan was a ‘free man’ and a State witness, never attempted to prosecute the former LTTE strongman.
