COLOMBO: Two soldiers and four cadres of the Tamil Tigers were killed in violence in the north and east on Wednesday even as a pro-LTTE parliamentarian said Sri Lanka would not pursue a political solution until it finds itself unable to find a military solution. The only option open for peace is for the LTTE to demonstrate that Colombo's military agenda will not succeed, he said.

Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and Member of the Parliamentary Consultative Committees for Constitutional affairs, in an interview with TamilNet said the situation was the "direct result" of the international community's demonstrated unwillingness to stop Colombo from proceeding with the "military agenda".

He said the U.S. and the U.K. curtailed some development aid due to the worsening human rights record of the Government but continued their military assistance. "How is one to interpret this other than as support for the Government's military approach?... Then I ask you, why should the Sri Lankan Government change its ways?"

Charging that the proposal by the Government's All Party Representative Committee (APRC) was the usual ploy to buy time, Mr. Gajendrakumar said, "This strategy of the State is not anything new. The current Government's strategy is a slightly cruder variety of the previous "War for Peace" campaigns. The Tamil people have no illusions about this... The SLFP proposals took a good one and a half years to be unveiled. Now the APRC can deliberate for many more moons to give sufficient time for the Sri Lankan Government's military project to be unveiled."

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