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EU urged to
pressure Sri Lanka to make peace [IANS /
27-01-2008]
"The EU should enforce peace in Sri Lanka, force the
government to talk peace," Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam
told IANS on the sidelines of a conference here in
Chennai.
She said the breakdown of the Norway-sponsored
ceasefire agreement on Sri Lanka had created "a very
intricate situation" in the island's north.
"I think the times ahead will be very bad, very
bloody. You cannot eradicate Tamil resistance," she
added, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE).
"One can only hope that when the next ceasefire
happens, it will last for a decade," she said.
A professor of history, Helmann-Rajanayagam along
with Sri Lanka's Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP
M.K. Sivajilingam and Ranath Kumarasinghe of the
Nava Sama Samaj Party (NSSP) took part in a
conference organised by Manitham, a rights
body based in Tamil Nadu.
Hellmann-Rajanayagam, who has frequently visited the
LTTE-held areas in Sri Lanka, said she had just
wanted to remain just an academic and an historian.
"But every time I went to Sri Lanka to visit
relatives and friends in Kilinochchi, I realised I
could not remain a spectator to the rights
violations by the authorities," she said.
The European Union along with Norway, the US and
Japan had been overseeing the implementation of the
2002 ceasefire agreement. Colombo has jettisoned the
pact.
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END] |
