The Hindu : 'No quarter to Balasingham in T.N.'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 13, 2002

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'No quarter to Balasingham in T.N.'

By Suresh Nambath

CHENNAI April 12. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, today emphatically declared that her Government would not allow anyone from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to set foot in the State even if the Centre decided to permit medical treatment for the LTTE ideologue, Anton Balasingham, in the country.

``The AIADMK Government is of the firm opinion that the LTTE poses a potential threat to the security of the entire nation,'' she told reporters at the Secretariat.

While welcoming the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's statement that the Centre would not get involved in the peace talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE, the Chief Minister expressed her opposition to the Centre ``sympathetically considering'' the LTTE request for the treatment of Mr. Balasingham in India.``We are firmly opposed to this.'' At the same time, she said she was hopeful that the Centre would not do anything to pressure Tamil Nadu on this issue now that the State Government had expressed its objection.

But, if despite the State's objection, the Centre allowed Mr. Balasingham into India, the AIADMK Government would not let him enter Tamil Nadu.

Asked about the implications of her stand on Centre-State relations, she said she did not want to go into the deeper aspects of Centre-State relations at this juncture, but she did not think the Centre would overrule the State's objection.

``Whatever we are doing is in the national interest.'' In this context, she also pointed out that law and order was a State subject.

To a question on the likely impact of her position on the ongoing peace talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE, she said this was an internal matter of Sri Lanka. Although the rest of the world might see the talks as progressive in the context of the efforts to find a solution to the ethnic crisis in the island, ``we cannot close our eyes'' to the dangers of allowing the LTTE into India.

If the LTTE was allowed into India, secessionist groups such as the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army and the Tamil Nadu Retrieval Troops might gain confidence. For some strange reason, the Centre had not granted the State's request to ban the two groups under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967. (Both groups have already been banned in the State under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908.)

Reiterating her request for the extradition of the LTTE supremo, Velupillai Prabakaran, the Chief Minister said that if the Sri Lankan Government was unable to do so, it could seek the help of the Indian armed forces.

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