Date:28/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/28/stories/2008122860030800.htm

National

Karunanidhi urges Centre to help end war in Sri Lanka

Special Correspondent

“We are waiting
for Pranab’s visit
to Sri Lanka”
Centre’s decision must be acceptable to us, says CM

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Saturday appealed to the Centre to act quickly to put an end to the war in Sri Lanka, saying every minute of delay in intervention cost one more Tamil his life.

“The government should not forget this. With tears in my eyes I am making this request,” Mr. Karunanidhi said in his address to the 13th general council meeting of the DMK, which unanimously elected him president of the party for the 10th time.

Mr. Karunanidhi recalled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance that he would send External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to hold talks with the Sri Lankan government.

“We are still waiting for him to make the visit,” Mr. Karunanidhi said and pointed to the resolution adopted in the general council urging the Prime Minister to send Mr. Mukherjee to Sri Lanka and take steps to stop the war.

While pointing out that the Tamils with their infants had been left in the lurch on the streets of Sri Lanka, Mr. Karunanidhi said the DMK would not resort to violent and anti-national means to raise the issue.

“We wanted the Central government to take a decision that would be acceptable to us,” he said and expressed his unhappiness over the delay in taking action.

“Diverting our voice”

While making it clear that the DMK had drawn a line between the situation that existed before Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and after it, Mr. Karunanidhi said some forces were dragging the name of the LTTE to “divert our voice.”

“Their perverted statement is nothing but an attempt to strangulate the Tamils who are dying there,” Mr. Karunanidhi said.

A resolution accused AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa of diverting the issue by her statement that those who were killed were LTTE cadres and not innocent Sri Lankan Tamils.

Urging the Centre to reject such claims, the Chief Minister said he hoped it would respect the resolution adopted by the general council.

“Ready for sacrifice”

Recalling his resignation from the Tamil Nadu Assembly along with party general secretary K. Anbazhagan in support of the Sri Lankan Tamils in the 1980s, the Chief Minister said: “We are even ready to sacrifice our lives for the cause of Tamils.”

Earlier, regretting that many DMK leaders deviated from the path of rationalism and the self-respect movement, he said this subjected the DMK to ridicule.

Reacting to reports in some sections of the media that the general council was slated to begin on an auspicious day and time, he said he deliberately delayed his departure from home to prove the critics wrong.

The DMK needed to continue as a social movement, he said, and advised partymen to give up the habit of presenting shawls to the leaders. Instead they should present them handloom shawls and books, the Chief Minister said.