TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2003 03:58:03 PM ] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=137652 NEW DELHI: The Muslim youth in several parts of Sri Lanka may soon form their own anti-LTTE suicide 'Osama squads' to fight the discrimination meted out to them by the Tamil extremists. With indiscriminate killings and abductions of the Muslim community by the LTTE reported in the Eastern province, undercurrents of anxiety verging on desperation have been increasing in momentum on the West coastline among its peace-loving members. The first public expressions of a backlash came last week from the Forum of Muslim Organisations, reports reaching here indicate. Already Muslim youth in Batticaloa have formed the Ossama squads since fair play is not ensured for the community in the embattled north and east. The grim foreboding was voiced at a meeting called by the Unity Forum which had invited the Citizens' Movement for Good Governance and others interested in a sustainable solution for peace last week, The Island reported from Colombo. According to U Abdul Wahab, a Colombo-based east-coast businessman the major threat was that Muslim youth would soon step out on the same path Sinhala youth had taken with the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna uprisings and the Tamil youth driven to militancy in the past. "The Muslims of the East have a six per cent majority, yet the Government chooses to negotiate with the LTTE. We are sitting on the lip of a volcano about to erupt. The absolute apathy, and incapacity of the Government is to blame. Today the LTTE is armed to a degree that their driving the Muslims out of the East is imminent" Wahab was quoted as saying. The prevailing sense of insecurity among the Muslims of Sri Lanka has been prompting the Forum to present their case at meetings with the gamut of local and international organisations and foreign representatives in Colombo. The LTTE has discriminated against Muslims, and in 1990 expelled some 46,000 Muslim inhabitants -- virtually the entire Muslim population -- from their homes in areas under LTTE control in the northern part of the island. Most of these persons remain displaced and live in or near welfare centers. Although some Muslims returned to Jaffna in 1997, they did not remain there due to the continuing threat posed by the LTTE. In the past, there were credible reports that the LTTE had warned thousands of Muslims displaced from the Mannar area not to return to their homes until the conflict was over. However, with the ceasefire and peace efforts on, the LTTE has made positive statements on the possible return of Muslims to this area. In the past, the LTTE also expropriated Muslim homes, land, and businesses, and threatened Muslim families with death if they attempted to return. It appears that these attacks were not targeted against persons due to their religious beliefs, but rather that they were a part of an overall strategy to clear the north and east of persons not sympathetic to the cause of an independent Tamil state. |