COLOMBO, Dec 13: President Mahinda Rajapakse’s quest for finding a permanent political solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict has come under fresh strain with the Sinhala-based party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) quitting the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), which is involved in deliberating the issue.

The JVP, which quit the APRC on Tuesday, has accused a section of the experts’ panel appointed by President Rajapakse to formulate proposals for devolving power to the provinces, of favouring the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) demand for a separate state.

The JVP has demanded that the government immediately abolish the report already submitted to the president recommending a maximum devolution to all regions of Sri Lanka, including the Tamil-dominated north and east.

The Marxist party has vehemently objected to the panel’s recommendation of a total re-hauling of the constitution to facilitate, among other things, the appointment of two vice-presidents of different ethnic backgrounds.

The report pointed out that the crisis had arisen because the smaller ethnic groups -- the Tamils and the Muslims – did not get their due share of state power.

Addressing a press conference here, JVP leader Somawanse Amarasinghe said the party would withdraw all support to finding a political solution to the country’s ethnic conflict until the government abolished the report and discouraged attempts to help the LTTE in its demand for a separate state.

Last Friday, the party comprising Buddhist monks, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, sought an urgent meeting with the president to clarify whether the report reflected the stand of government. The party had been assured by the president that the report contained only the views of a section of the panel of constitutional experts and that the recommendations had yet to be presented to the political parties for further debate, presidential sources said.

Analysts said the objection by the two parties to the latest efforts to usher in peace through a political solution would once again indefinitely prolong the volatile situation in the country.

Nearly 200 people have been killed during the past three weeks in fresh clashes between the Tamil Tigers and the army in the east of the country.

“This inability to reach a consensus on the ethnic issue once again plunges the country into an abyss,” observes Pakiasothy Saravanamuthu, head of a think tank, the Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Government sources said the JVP and other anti-LTTE factions had ‘misinterpreted’ the expert committee recommendations, assuming them to be the ‘final’ stand of the government or the APRC.

“These recommendations by the panel of constitutional experts only serve as discussion papers for the committee to work on.”