COLOMBO, Sept. 25, A member of President Junius Jayewardene’s ruling party said on Friday he was resigning from Parliament because a peace pact enabled India to intervene in Sri Lanka’s affairs,
Asoka Somaratne of the United National Party (UNP) said during a speech in Parliament his resignation would take effect on October 1
“Today we live in a country where independence is no longer what it was when we came into power in 1977. India has come to Sri Lanka and is meddling in our affairs under the guise of ethnic crisis” the said to jeers from other UNP members.
“The Indian peacekeeping force operating in Sri Lanka is violating its laws and we never know when they will leave,” he added.
Somaratne is the first MP to resign India and) Sri Lanka signed on July 29 an agreement that allowed New Delhi to send some 8,000 of its troops to ensure an end to fighting between Tamil rebels and Sri Lankan soldiers,
His constituency of Ratgama is {in the South, where the banned Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP — Peoples Liberation Front) is active.
The JVP, a leftist group blamed for promoting anti Tamil riots in 1983, has threatened to kill MPs who vote for the accord. Police blamed it for Thursday’s murder of three UNP members in Kuttigala in the South.
The pact provides for the merger of the north and east under a single autonomous unit which would be implemented only after Parliament’s approval.
Somaratne said that after the accord was signed there was trouble in the island and some houses of MPs were attacked. “This. I think, is because those people who were elected by the people did not think of the people,” he said,
Bat sources who read his resignation letter to Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa said the note did not blame the peace accord nor India’s presence in the Island.
“He said in his letter that not much work was done for his electorate due to bureaucratic red tape and he felt sorry that his electorate was let down”, a government source said.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 2, 1987
