As the 'Thawakkal Affair' took centre stage in politics, Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe renewed his challenge for a public televised debate on the issue and placed ground rules for it.
The UNP is asking President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to restrict the debate to the 'Thawakkal Affair' and follow it with another debate on 'Sri Lanka's Economic Management-Past, Present and Future' as the President wanted the topic of the debate expanded.
According to a senior UNP member the party feels that if the scope of the debate is expanded it would dilute the impact of the 'Thawakkal Affair' which has now attracted much public interest and was the theme of a marathon debate in parliament from Tuesday to Thursday.
The UNP will be informing the President that if the televised public debate was to go ahead both parties should nominate three representatives from either side to discuss details including the rules for the debate, date, time and venue.
The UNP is proposing a one hour debate which would be telecast live from a studio where all recognized television and radio stations will have access. The moderator should be mutually agreed to by both parties.
The other ground rules for the debate are:
Both sides should be entitled to a one-minute opening statement.
A first period - 30 minutes - where the moderator would ask the same question from both parties alternating the order so that each party would take turns in the follow-up position. The speakers would have one minute and thirty seconds to respond to the question of the moderator. The speakers would be cut-off if the time limit is exceeded.
A second period - 20 minutes - where the candidates would ask each other questions. The questions should not exceed 30 seconds. The answers should not exceed one minute and thirty seconds.
The moderator could intervene during this period if order needs to be restored, or at the request of either party.
Each party would be permitted a three minute closing statement.
The parties would flip a coin to see who would close the debate. Whoever loses can chose whether he/she will make the first or second opening statement.
The remaining two minutes would be allocated to the moderator for opening and closing greetings.
Meanwhile a committee appointed to look into the possibility of telecasting parts of the debate of the Thawakkal issue in parliament had recommended that some of the speeches by both opposition and government party members should be censored as they had used unparliamentary language.
Forty soldiers were killed and 15 including an officer were wounded when Tiger guerrillas ambushed an Army patrol at Vantharamoolai, a village just 14 kilometres outside the eastern capital of Batticaloa.
The incident occurred last evening when a 100 strong Army patrol from the Sittandy camp moved to check on a reported build-up by Tiger cadres in Vantharamoolai, located on the main supply route from Welikande to Batticaloa.
A senior military official at Army Headquarters who spoke to 'The Sunday Times' on grounds of anonymity said last night that the patrol appears to have unwittingly walked into an LTTE trap. It was ordered to proceed towards Vantharamoolai and check out reports of a build-up by Tiger cadres. This was after information was received that the guerrillas were massing strength in the area.
The patrol had moved in barely a thousand metres from the main road linking Welikande and Batticaloa when the Tiger guerrillas ambushed them. "They fired mortars, machine guns and small arms", the official said. He said reports last night put the death toll at 40 but expressed fears it may rise. This was because some of those wounded were in a serious condition, he added.
More than 300 Tiger cadres had taken part in the attack yesterday. It is said to have included several LTTE leaders in the east. Yesterday's incident underscored the deteriorating security situation in the east, particularly in Batticaloa.
Despite the withdrawal of LTTE cadres from the Batticaloa district to the north in the past few weeks, intelligence sources say, a substantial strength was being kept in the area to continue the campaign to destabilise the east and cripple civil administration.
In the last two weeks alone there have been two major incidents in the Batticaloa district. On March 11, 22 Special Task Force commandos including two inspectors were killed in Vollaveli in Batticaloa district. With yesterday's incident, within two weeks 62 soldiers and Policemen have been killed. In the neighbouring district of Polonnaruwa, five Policemen were killed on March 17 at Alinchipotana, 12 kilometres west of Welikanda in an attack by Tiger cadres.
Yesterday's incident came as the Defence authorities in Colombo were focusing attention on further tough measures to curb the LTTE in the Jaffna peninsula. (See Situation Report on Page 7).
And so, state TV made foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, a 'prisoner of conscience' for a night after the Puttalam cement debate.
Amnesty International, the Civic Rights Movement et al must surely have got their act together last Thursday. There is an important Cabinet Minister of the PA Government, complaining - in Parliament - that he is a prisoner of conscience.
Surely the concern would have been even greater in the case of Mr. Kadirgamar who as a young lawyer back from Oxford, was Sri Lanka's first representative of Amnesty International when he was sent to Vietnam to report on the persecution of Buddhists at the time.
For those Yakkos who are not in tune with the Human Rights lexicon a prisoner of conscience is;
The imprisonment, detention or other physical restrictions imposed on any person by reason of his or her political, religious or other concientiously held beliefs or by reason of his or her ethnic origin, sex, colour, or language, provided that he or she has not used or advocated violence."
And both Rupavahini & ITN say that the FM told Parliament he was a prisoner of conscience sending the wrong signals, that there he was stoutly defending his government against his conscience.
Criminal defamation? No, a clarification will do said the FM a true liberal democrat, to the Media Secretary.
Leaders of five Tamil parties have met US Ambassador Peter Burleigh in Colombo to discuss international support to achieve a solution to the ethnic war, a party spokesman said.
They discussed the legal draft of the devolution package including a separate Unit for the North and East.
EPRLF Leader Suresh Premachandra told The Sunday Times they discussed several issues pertaining to the Tamil people.
"The ambassador was very obliging aand said that the parties should at least meet once a month to discuss these problems", he added.
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