Sri Lankan President Calls for Joint Fight Against TerrorismSri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga in a special address to the nation on Wednesday night urged all political parties to join her to end the challenge of terrorism.She called on all political parties to put aside all political and other differences as well as petty personal desire for power and privilege in order to rebuild the nation together as an undivided, strong and humanistic one. She said the people had a historic decision to make singly and collectively at the referendum on a new constitution due on August 21. It is a decision for the future of the nation to remove major obstacles to the progress of the country. She added it will give the country a new constitution where human decency, the majority will of the people and their sovereignty and economic and social progress would reign supreme. She called on the opposition parties to cooperate to establish a new political culture. The main opposition United National Party in particular should decide whether it stood for peace or whether it still wanted to compromise with terror. Condemning Tuesday's Tamil rebel attack on an air force base and adjoining international airport at Katunayake she said they had tried to kill as many people as possible, seriously damage and destroy the economy and devastate the forward march of the nation. They had also made attempts to disrupt government efforts to bring an end to the war through a political settlement, she said. Earlier this month the president suspended parliament before a no-confidence vote against her government and called for the referendum on a new constitution as she had failed to obtain the two-third majority required for its passage in Parliament. |
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