Eradicate Eelam ideology – UNP

United National Party (UNP), Sri Lanka’s main opposition, has said the government should defeat the ‘Eelam ideology’ and stressed the need to take action on Tamil political parties to remove the Eelam ‘tag’ from their names.

Now that the LTTE is defeated, there is an urgent need to look at various ways of defeating the concept of 'Eelam' or a separate Tamil homeland through political means, UNP leader Dayasiri Jayasekara told reporters.

"Action needs to be taken regarding political parties carrying the name Eelam. The LTTE has imposed this concept on the minds of people who lived in the North and East.

"They have been made to believe they were living on a land described as Eelam under a separate flag. Now we have to through political means replace the Eelam concept or mindset with the one that we are all Sri Lankans," the UNP leader said.

‘Action needs to be taken regarding political parties carrying the name Eelam’ Jayasekara  added referring to Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), People Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS).

Jayasekara said the UNP was delighted at the government’s resolution being adopted at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday with 29 nations voting in favour and added the government should going forward look at the reasons for some European nations voting against Sri Lanka at the special session, and revamp Sri Lanka’s foreign policy to win them over.

“The United States and the European countries are our major trading partners. Without just focusing only on one section of the international community we should focus on the others too,” he said.

Underlining the need for the government and his party to work to a common agenda at least on national issues Jayasekara said: “The government should stop criticizing the UNP leadership and it members. We should agree on a common programme. If the government needs our help, they should tell us. If not we could carry out our political work on our own,” he said.