The largest party in the Tamil National Alliance, the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, has called for the merging of the Northern and Eastern provinces into one administrative unit at its annual General Council meeting.
The meeting, held ahead of Sunday’s 14th annual convention, also resolved to call for an end to state-sponsored colonisation schemes, equal rights for the Tamil people and for progress in resettlement and development, in both the North and East.
A leaked cable from the US embassy revealed that international diplomats were unhappy with a 2006 decision by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court to void the merging of the Northern and Eastern provinces.This included US Assisstant Secretary for South Asian Affairs Mark Boucher, who urged President Rajapaksa, to accept the merging as a "given."
See the full text of the cable here.
Meanwhile, the Devanayagam Memorial Hall in Batticaloa, where the convention was set to take place, was reportedly set alight on Friday, just two days before the convention was set to take place. Unidentified persons were also reported to have distrubted leaflets, urging for a boycott of the convention.
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