Love your country and its people

ANANDASANGAREE TELLS TAMILS:

Tamil United Liberation Front Leader V. Anandasangaree, who toured South Africa recently, reveals his fresh insights on achieving peace and reconciliation, in an exclusive interview with the Daily News. "If you want to be a patriot, love your country and its people," says Anandasangaree, an outstanding critic of the LTTE and a vociferous advocate of extensive devolution.

Anandasangaree remarks that "we have a lot to learn from South Africa" where previously bitter enemies now work together for the betterment of their country. He also talks about the Tripartite Alliance of Tamil parties and expresses doubts over whether the LTTE will ever be keen on a negotiated settlement.

Manjula Fernando and Siva Subramaniam
Q: You have just returned from an extensive tour of South Africa. What was your mission there?

A: To assess the ground situation there. There were a lot of misconceptions about the Sri Lankan situation. We wanted the whole world to know the truth. The people, especially the Tamils of Indian origin were highly biased against the Government and were pro- LTTE. A TNA MP had travelled to South Africa before us and had created as much damage as possible.

One girl put a question to me if it was true that 70,000 Tamil women have been raped. I said please don't disgrace me also. We are not a country of rapists. If you can mention 25 names I will quit politics.

This is the type of campaign they have carried out against the country. One Tamil was asking about the treatment given to the Muslims and claiming the LTTE was their saviour. He was very vociferous.

I explained about the IDP camps in Jaffna. The Muslims chased away from Jaffna by the LTTE are still languishing in IDP camps. They deprived the Muslims of all their possessions. We managed to clear all misconceptions.