ASIA/SRI LANKA - Tension among government and Tamil community following presidential elections

Colombo (Fides Service) - After presidential elections there is uncertainty in Sri Lanka with regards to the future. The new president Mahinda Rajapakse, has said he intends to revise the cease fire agreement signed in February 2002 with the Tamil separatist movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil EELAM which controls the northern part of the Island.
The president said he is ready to talk with the LTTE with regard to an open and transparent peace process which should include “prevention of terrorist attacks and recruitment of child-soldiers”.
The move was not welcomed by the Tamil minority which threatened to resume civil conflict unless the government formulates before the end of 2005 a coherent and acceptable draft agreement which meets the demands of the Tamil minority.
In the meantime the new president has appointed 25 ministers of his executive excluding majority extremists his allies in the elections. The extremist parties Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front, JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaya (National Heritage Party, JHU), whose members are Buddhist monks will support the new government without having any position in the executive.
The new prime minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, 73, has always opposed any concessions to the Tamil community and supported a nationalist Sinhalese-Buddhist line. Former minister for Buddhist Affairs Wickremanayake is the promoter of the Act for the Protection of Religious Freedom, still to be discussed by Parliament strongly opposed by religious minority groups the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka in particular.
In Sri Lanka the president is head of government and chief of the armed forces and has the power to dissolve parliament.
(PA) (Agenzia Fides 29/11/2005 righe 28 parole 289)