MADRAS: Sri Lankan militant Tamil group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), is urging Tamils not to leave the island and seek refuge in Tamil Nadu as, it said, normalcy had returned to the Tamil majority areas following the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) withdrawal a senior LTTE leader Dilip Yogi said.

Yogi, who is a member of the high level LTTE delegation currently holding talks with Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi, told PTI here that there was no need for anyone to come to Tamil Nadu as a refugee. The law and order situation was normal, peace and returned to the Tamil majority areas after two years, and there should be no “alibi” for the IPKE to remain in Sri Lanka after March 31.

Yogi said nearly 40,000 Tamils who had fled to Colombo a few years ago in view of the strife, had recently returned to Sri Lanka’s north and east, and most of the 90,000 refugees in India who fled to Tamil Nadu after the 1983 ethnic riots, wanted to return in view of the normalcy.

Yogi said that at a time when almost all the Sri Lankan Tamils who had sought refuge elsewhere were returning to the Tamil province, it was strange that about 2,000 persons, most of them supporters of Tamil group Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), ruling in the northeast province, or those “forcibly conscripted” by the Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF) group and EPRLF, were fleeing to India and seeking help here as refugees.

These persons, Yogi said were not refugees but were part of “strategy and tactics” to build a case for continued IPKF presence in Sri Lanka without which they could not survive.

Yogi said the IPKF must pull out before March 31 and there were indications that the process had been accelerated. About 20,000 Indian soldiers still remained in Jaffna, Palaly, Vadamarachi and Trincomalee town, Yogi said.

He claimed that the IPKF withdrawal had been widely welcomed by the Tamils and had led to return of law and order, normal life including night shifts and free movement of the people who had “suffered” for more than two years.

Yogi said the LTTE cadres who had gone underground two years ago were now “‘surfacing, regrouping and campaigning among the people.” and there was “tremendous response”’ from the people.

The LTTE leader, who had handed over his pistol to the IPKF soon after the accord, to symbolize the LTTE’s surrender of weapons, said the LTTE cadres were moving about freely among the people in the areas from where the IPKF had withdrawn.

He said the north eastern provincial council was “nonexistent” as there was “‘virtually no administration” by the EPRLEF. The council was confined to a one kilometer radius in Trincomalee town and was very much under the patronage of the IPKF.

Asked if the LTTE expected dissolution of the council, Yogi ‘said it might pose legal difficulties but “it would go once the IPKF goes,” right now, it existed, “only on paper.”

Article extracted from this publication >> February 23, 1990