LTTE lashes out at India for hosting Lankan army chief

The LTTE has criticised India for hosting the Sri Lankan army chief despite the scrapping of a 2002 ceasefire by Colombo, saying such moves will "reinvigorate" the island's military which was carrying out "ethnic genocide" against Tamils.

In a statement circulated here, LTTE said it "strongly condemns" India extending a "state welcome" to the military chief Maj Gen Sarath Fonseka of the "Sinhala State" which has "unilaterally abrogated the ceasefire agreement and has launched widespread military offensives in Tamil homeland."

Despite condemnation of its attempt to seek a military solution, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam alleged that Sri Lanka is continuing its "enormous human rights violations".

Many of the European countries now understand its "hidden motive" and have halted all assistance, it added.

"The Indian State also knows this truth. Yet, while pronouncing that a solution to the Tamil problem must be found through peaceful means, it is giving encouragement to the military approach of the Sinhala State. This can only lead to the intensification of the genocide of the Tamils," it said.

India's move of "propping up the politically- militarily-economically weakened Sri Lankan State has upset Eelam Tamils," it said.

India must take the "responsibility for the ethnic genocide of the Tamils that will be carried out by the Sinhala military re-invigorated by such moves of the Indian State."

LTTE said it "wishes to point to the Indian State that this historic blunder by it will continue to subject the Eelam Tamils to misery."

"We still have not abandoned the Norway sponsored peace efforts and we are ready to take part in such efforts."

Fonseka undertook a week-long visit to India this month. Fighting has intensified in the island country after Sri Lanka scrapped the tattered ceasefire in January.

Source: Hindu