Well known and senior trade union leader Bala Tampoe speaks on the war in Sri Lanka and the state of governance in the South.

He notes that even militarily defeating the LTTE does not mean guerilla warfare or their terrorist attacks against civilians in the South will cease. He goes on to note that:

“…on top of that they are talking about a political settlement. [The Rajapakse regime] can never achieve a proper political settlement till and until they recognise the right of self-determination, which is a democratic right, of the Tamil people and the Muslim people in the North and East, and establish some kind of proper constitutional basis for them to exercise that right within the framework of a democratic constitution. But they cannot have a democratic constitution in the first place when the rest of the country is under a Presidential Executive which amounts today to a virtual military police dictatorship under the Emergency.”