Colombo, 15 December, (Asiantribune.com): In a recent visit to New Delhi, the Sri Lankan Tamil Minister, Douglas Devananda appealed to T.R. Balu, Minister of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways, to provide ships to carry humanitarian aid to Jaffna. Despite the agreement between the two to keep the talks confidential Balu told the Indian media that he had rejected the appeal. 
Minister Douglas Devananda: "The ship was needed to transport food items purchased in Tamil Nadu by the Sri Lanka Government to feed our people in the Peninsula."
Douglas Devananda states the Balu had misunderstood the whole conversation. He told the "Asian Tribune" from Jaffna : "The ship was needed to transport food items purchased in Tamil Nadu by the Sri Lanka Government to feed our people in the Peninsula. It was for this purpose that I asked the Minister the ship. I think he has misunderstood my request. He must have thought that I was talking about the food items collected by the Indian Government to provide the people of Jaffna. This is not my problem. If in case the Government of India come forward to donate food and other essential items to the people in the Jaffna peninsula, then it is the problem of the Central Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu to make suitable arrangements to ship those food items according to the agreement with the Government of Sri Lanka.
"Therefore I think it is my duty to bring this to the notice of the Minister," he said.
Here is the full text of Douglas Devanada’s statement:
When I was in New Delhi, as one of the two Sri Lanka’s Ministers in our President’s delegation, I met two leading DMK cabinet Ministers. They were T.R. Balu, Minister of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways and Dayanidhi Maran Minister of Communications & Information Technology. I met them separately. I met Minister Dayanidhi Maran one-to-one, alone without any aides. When I went to meet Minister T.R.Balau I met him along with our Sabarullah Khan Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi.
Before leaving to New Delhi, I wrote to these two DMK Ministers requesting them for an appointment to meet them. The meeting with these two Ministers was subsequently arranged and confirmed by our High Commission in New Delhi.
Dayanidhi Maran Minister of Communications & Information Technology.
I went to meet them to brief them on the other side of the story regarding the problems faced by our Tamil brothers in the Jaffna Peninsula. Until the time I met them they were not aware that the members of Parliament said to be of the Tamil National Alliance were not living in the midst of those who elected the MPs to represent them. I brought to the notice of those two Ministers that they were living in Colombo, enjoying the air condition comforts and living safely in houses provided by the Government, with Sri Lankan police guarding them. Their main job has been to issue press statements, or to travel all over the world to promote Tiger terrorism in their talks to the Tamils in the diaspora. They travel on the dirty, blood-stained money handed to them by Tigers mainly to shed crocodile tears on platforms prepared by the Tami diaspora. They return home loaded with luxury items for their families and also for the leader of the Tamil Tigers.
I explained to the Indian Ministers that I was also elected by the same Tamil people of the Jaffna Peninsula. I informed them that despite threats on my life, despite more than known 12 attempts on my life ordered by Tiger leader Velupillai Prabakaran, I have never run away from my people. I share their lives during my regular visits to Jaffna and whenever I am in Jaffna, I meet around 300 to 500 people a day, listen to their grievances and try my best to fulfill their aspirations. When ever I move with them I eat the same food they eat and mix freely with them to understand their hardships they face. I told them that unlike the leader of the Tamil Tigers I do not hide in a bunker 40 foot below ground level.
I realized that these facts were known to the Indian Ministers only after I brought them to their notice. I brought to the notices of the two DMK Ministers that the Tiger tactic was always to provoke, taunt and initiate shelling, shooting and laying of claymore mines to target the Sri Lanka Army vehicles. 
T.R. Balu, Minister of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways
Furthermore, I explained to them that LTTE always locate their 122mm and 152mm heavy artilleries, 81mm mortars and all other heavy guns in the densely populated areas, such as school, refugee centers, hospitals and temples in the hope that the Army would retaliate and cause damage to civilian centres.
Once the army is attacked, they are forced to fire in the direction from which the Tigers launched provocative attacks. After provoking the attacks deliberately from civilian centres the pro-Tiger media is then used to exploit the damage caused by the retaliatory fire as violations of humanitarian law. It has been the common practice of the Tigers to continue this needless war by selling the bodies and the blood of the Tamil people to prop the one-man regime in the Vanni.
Sri Lanka Army has on numerous occasions requested to the ICRC, INGOs, SLMM and the international community to notify the LTTE to move civilians away from their gun positions, or move their guns away from civilian settlements, but so far they haven’t responded to the Government requests .
I pointed out to the Ministers that Tigers must have the interest of the Tamil people in their hearts if they claim to represent the Tamil people. But the ground realities reveal that the main political activity of the Tigers has been to gain control of power in order to control the people and to keep them under boots of the Pol Potist regime in the Vanni.
I made it known to the two Ministers that there are more than 5,000 Tamils languishing in the LTTE’s torture chambers in Vanni. I also emphasized that the Tigers run torture chambers and prisons in all the other places which are under their control.
I revealed to them Tamils who do not toe the line are thrown into prisons with their legs manacled and welded. They are allowed to stand naked in six feet deep pits until they die of thirst and hunger.
Underage children are abducted against the wishes of the parents and given training in carrying arms. These children are traumatised first in their camps and second when they are thrown into the battle front.
I told the Ministers that if the Tigers can’t feed the people living in their areas it is their duty not to provoke wars. It is the people who suffer when food is used as a weapon of war and when they wage an unnecessary war. I also pointed out that more Tamil have been killed after signing the Ceasefire Agreement than in any comparative period before.
I explained the tragic plight of the rebels groups that surrendered arms on the personal request of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. All the other rebel groups including the EPDP surrendered arms and joined the democratic stream. No sooner the arms were surrendered the Tigers went on a killing spree of the unarmed Tamil rebels. I pointed out that to date more than 78 EPDP members and supporters were killed by the LTTE gunmen ruthlessly. All those who were killed by the Tiger gunmen were Tamils and very soon there will be no Tamils left for the Tigers to kill.
In the Jaffna peninsula, even those, Temple priests, journalists and school principals were killed by the Tigers because they had contacts with me and with the leaders of my party. Whenever they kill some leading figures they use get their paid coolie writers to propagate the myth that they were killed by the EPDP cadres. One of the most noted coolie writers after Sivaram, who is amply rewarded with blood stained money for his expenses in Canada is D.B.S.Jeyaraj, who has re-established links with the Tigers. On the instructions of his LTTE connections he now blames the EPDP for the killings of the LTTE.
Further I told the Ministers that when Mahinda Rajapakse was sworn in as President of the country on 19 November 2005, Prabakaran never gave him even a breathing space for him to start formulating his proposals to solve the ethnic conflict. He was even prepared to personally go to Vanni to meet Prabakaran, listen to him and discuss with him and explore ways and means to solve the issues connected with the Tamils. But Prabakaran and the LTTE was not prepared to meet him and discuss with him.
In the meantime, while the Ceasefire Agreement was on, LTTE killed more than 300 Sri Lanka’s soldiers and civilians without the slightest provocation. Then Army was firmly instructed by the Sri Lanka President, not to retaliate.
This went on until such time the LTTE tried to kill the Sri Lanka’s Army Commander in April 2006. The restraint the Army exercise came to an end after this incident. Ever since then the Army has been retaliating under severe provocation.
The Government elected by the people has a duty to safeguard the people. It continues to provide food and other facilities even to Prabakaran who is hiding in the bunkers. The LTTE which collected millions and millions of US dollars from several Governments, Tamil diasporas and INGO’s has up to date did not spend even a dime to feed even one civilian in the Vanni.
But they continued to exert maximum pressure and exploit the misery of theTamils. When the A-9 Road was opened up Government expected that the traffic to flow smoothly to and from Jaffna. Unfortunately when the Tamils enter the LTTE controlled section of the A-9 road they were forced to pay tolls and they were taxed very heavily. When a Tamil from the diaspora travels through this road, that person is stopped, questioned, threatened and forced to pay huge some of money for not contributing any money to the LTTE in the country of his/her residence.
It has been estimated that the LTTE collected more than 1 million rupees a day as illegal taxes and tolls. After 11 August when the LTTE opened fire on the entry / exit point at Muhamali – the gateway to the Jaffna Peninsula – the Government retaliated by closing A-9 road.
But the entry/exit point at the southern end – Omanthai – the Government keeps the road open for the people and traffic go into Vanni and from Vanni to Colombo and other places.
I also pointed out that the LTTE Leaders including Velupillai Prabakaran, his deputies and cadres are fed by the Sri Lanka Government through this Omanthai entry-exit point. The Tamils in Vanni do not face the shortages faced by the people of Jaffna.
I wish also place on record that I have the highest regard to the Tamil leaders of Tamil Nadu especially to Madam J.jayalalitha, former chief minister and the Secretary to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kalagam and to D.M.K. Leader M.Karunanidy and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. I always look forward to receive their advise to end the ethnic conflict and Tiger terrorism in our country.
- ASian Tribune -
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