Anandasangaree demands Sambanthan’s resignation

The Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), V. Anandasangaree in a letter to Leader of the Opposition, R. Sampanthan, has asked that Sampanthan submit his letter of resignation from the position of Opposition Leader, if the government fails to deliver on its promises to the Tamil people within a period of two weeks.

“The Tamils have reached their limit of tolerance, but not now, it happened long ago. They are now forced to come to a decision to demand your resignation from the office of the Leader of the opposition, which office you had been using to defend the Government, much against the wishes of the people, not only the Tamils but people of all ethnic groups,” stated the letter released to the media yesterday. He further states that many of the problems of the Tamil people such as “the release of lands, detention of Tamil political prisoners, grievances of the families of the missing persons,” could have been solved long ago, if he, the Opposition Leader really wanted it. “Please take a piece of paper, write out your resignation from the office of the Leader of the opposition and keep it with you, with the threat of sending it, if solutions are not found for these problems within a period of two weeks. Please don’t forget that people have now started condemning you and burning your effigies,” he added and warned that the people would soon demand the resignation of all ITAK MPs from Parliament or to withdraw their support to the Government if no action is taken soon. Anandasangaree also observed that it was ‘foolish’ for Sampanthan to have demanded that both parties; the LTTE as well as the army be tried for war crimes as “the recruits by the LTTE were all under compulsion, with no right to question why.” He has stressed that Sampanthan not delay any further and “bring pressure on the government to start work on delivering their promises.” The TULF contested within the Tamil National Alliance in the 2001 Parliamentary elections under a common platform, but soon the TNA started taking a pro-LTTE stance which led to a split within the TULF; led by its President Anandasangaree who was opposed to the LTTE. At the 2004 Parliamentary elections, members of the TULF who wanted to remain with the TNA formed the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK).