Bomb blast roundly condemned

Both the government and the opposition have condemned the Ampara bomb blast, which killed 12 persons and injured 28 others. The bomb exploded inside the City Café Hotel in Ampara town at 5.40 pm on Friday, according to the Ampara police.

At the time of the blast, the café was crowded with people having evening tea. The force of the blast caused the building in which the café was housed to collapse. The injured are being treated in the Ampara hospital. Among the dead were 10 males and two females.

The police, who believe the bomb was planted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), said a number of ministers were in Ampara on the day of the blast. In a special statement condemning Friday’s bomb blast, Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickramanayake said the LTTE could not accept the idea of the people of the Eastern Province being liberated and brought into a democratic framework. He said the organisation’s sole aim was to mindlessly kill innocent civilians.

The prime minister said that an election was a basic right of the people, and that the people of the east had been eagerly awaiting this opportunity to elect their preferred representatives to their provincial council. Prime Minister Wickramanayake said there were many conspiracies aimed at sabotaging the eastern elections.

“One thing is clear,” he said. “The Tiger terrorists have been defeated in the face of the brave soldiers. They have no strength to face our brave soldiers, so now they are targeting unarmed innocent civilians. After the Piliyandala bomb, their target was to explode a bomb in a hotel where civilians gather.”

The prime minister said the government would not give up and would serve the public with renewed strength, regardless of the various forces that were attempting to disrupt democracy in the country. United National Party (UNP) General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said that if the motive behind the bomb blast was to deny the people their right to participate freely and without fear in an election, then the party or parties behind the criminal act should know that they had failed.

Mr. Attanayake pointed out that a number of Special Task Force (STF) camps in the east had been dismantled by the government to ensure the security of TMVP leader Pilleyan, and that this had jeopardised general security in the area.

He also said supporters of government ministers were moving around freely in the area, and that their vehicles were not subject to routine security checks.