COLOMBO: Computers and other technological items head the newest purchase list of the LTTE following the lifting of the embargo by the Sri Lankan United National Front government. The newest plans of the LTTE is keeping in line with the leader’s open market economic policy, announced at last week’s press conference.

Ramu Sinnappa, a key whip in the LTTE administration, in an exclusive interview with the writer said that the new plans are in accordance with the orders of the LTTE leader based on his open economic policies.

“We will begin with the purchase of around five computers which we hope to buy with funds from the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization”, Sinnappa, an ex-schoolmaster in Jaffna known as ‘Sinnapa master’ in the LTTE fraternity, said, referring to the main funding machine of the LTTE, kept thriving by funds mainly provided by the Tamil expatriate community.

According to Ramu Sinnapa , the computers are to be purchased for a youth institute to be established by the LTTE in the Kilinochchi region which is to include vocational training. In addition to computers, typewriters, generators and sewing machines are also to be purchased by the LTTE.

“We are in the planning stages. We hope to get the non- governmental organization in the region involved in our development plans”, Sinnappa said.

The LTTE’s development plan is to include a wide resettlement structure where forestland in the Mankulam region would be cleared to accommodate the thousands displaced people living in congested IDP settlements in the Vanni.

“We have approached the UNHCR and await the final results of the UNDP which has embarked on a survey on the displaced population in Sri Lanka and in India.

Once the survey is concluded we hope to submit proposals to other foreign missions to help us settle the displaced, Sinnappa said.

He said further that the LTTE would recommend the building of permanent housing for a feasible number of displaced persons, giving initial priority to those living in camps in the LTTE controlled control area.

Meanwhile it was revealed that nearly two lakhs of mines had been removed from the areas Kilinochchi, Nadunkurni and Odusudan areas in Vanni.

“We will continue with the mine clearing”, a member of the LTTE administration head office in Thunukkai said pointing out that specific orders have been given by the LTTE leader to be persistent in the mine clearing which is being taking place by nearly 300 LTTE members trained by the Tiger hierarchy.

The LTTE leader in his meeting with Tamil politicians in the Vanni last Friday had laid out in detail his plan to develop the Vanni ‘independently’ without the help of the Government.

Apparently the materializing of the LTTE’s chiefs plans will be based on how generous the foreign funding agents will appear.

Vanni sources point out that already proposals of plans for resettling displaced persons, agricultural boosting ventures and mine clearing are being churned out in the LTTE administrative interiors to be handed out to the Foreign missions.

PRABHAKARAN: Velupillai Prabhakaran, indexed the world over with a variety of titles, from liberation fighter, megalomaniac, and terror master, is in the process of practising a new art. The art of socializing.

“The crabs were delicious. The prawns stir-fried. And he was so gentlemanly”, a dazed Tamil MP representing the All Ceylon Tamil Congress, the oldest Tamil political party in Sri Lanka, said last Saturday having just returned from the gala dinner held for the 14 Tamil MPs in Sri Lanka’s Parliament.

The invitation for the dinner, which had been faxed to each Tamil political party office last week from the LTTE Political headquarters.

“We discussed the interim administration that the LTTE is supposed to undertake. The economic plans of the LTTE were also discussed”, R. Sampanthan one of the senior-most members of the Tamil United Liberation Front.

“He is serious. There is no reason to doubt his peace moves”, Sampanthan said referring to the LTTE leader’s role to usher in peace, something the war plagued country and its government is desperate for.

Meanwhile, optimism and pessimism, are two paradoxes that could be used to describe the underlying elements of the peace process in Sri Lanka, which was laid bare at the press conference by LTTE chief Prabhakaran last Wednesday.

Optimism stems from the LTTE leader’s stepping out of his guerilla hibernation, demonstrating the obvious yearning of the LTTE to change its character, at least in the eyes of the world.

Skepticism is what one gets, especially from a Lankan angle when sifting through the lines with regard to the LTTE’s once hardcore goal of a separate state, with the LTTE leader giving no indication of a serious commitment that the party would be willing to give up its call for a separate state.

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