By IANS
New Delhi : Tamil Tigers chief Velupillai Prabhakaran Tuesday called upon the international community to stop supporting Sri Lanka and “take a new approach in relation to our freedom struggle”.
Blaming the world for Colombo’s military approach to the Tamil question, Prabhakaran said in his annual speech that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) hoped other countries would end their military and economic aid to the Sri Lankan state.
“Our people firmly expect that at least from now on the international community will take a new approach in relation to our freedom struggle,” Prabhakaran said in his speech made available by the LTTE.
“On this sacred day, it is the hope of our people that the international community will cease giving military and economic aid to the Sinhala regime and accept the right of self determination and the sovereignty of the Tamil nation.”
Prabhakaran, 54, said the international community was today making “the same mistake that India made many years ago” – believing that Sri Lanka was capable of coming out with a political solution to a dragging ethnic conflict that has claimed about 70,000 lives since 1983.
“The past 60 years have proven beyond doubt that no political party in the (Sri Lankan) south has the political honesty or firmness in policy to find a just solution to the Tamil national question.
“It has also been proved beyond doubt that none of the southern parties are ready to accept the core principles for a lasting peace: the Tamil homeland, the Tamil nation and the Tamil right to self determination…
“All the Sinhala political parties are essentially chauvinistic and anti-Tamil. To expect a political solution from any of these parties is political naivety.”
Prabhakaran delivers an annual speech on this day every year, coinciding with a “Hero’s Week” the Tigers mark in those parts of Sri Lanka that they control.