Sri Lanka's Chandrika - LTTE Talks: Text of Sri Lanka Leaflet

தமிழ்த் தேசியம்

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
- Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C

Chandrika - LTTE Talks: 1994/95

Text of Sri Lanka Government Leaflet
- dropped in thousands on Jaffna by the Sri Lanka Airforce
at commencement of the Peace Talks in October 1994

Sunshine has begun to move into your lives to light up the gloom of misery that you have suffered all these years. As a start, a few rays of sunshine have already moved into the north in the form of twenty-eight commodities which have been liberated from the list of banned items to the north.

Referring to the lifting of the ban, Prime Minister told a Press Conference, we are doing this to rebuild the trust and confidence between the government and the people in the north. Among the 28 items that have been taken out of the banned list, and which would be so welcomed by you dear sisters who are housewives, are local and foreign soaps, tinned foods, coconut and vegetable oils, chocolates of all types and varieties, medicines, candles, school bags, plastic cans, kerosene, polythene and polythene bags, radios, and spare parts, bicycles and tyres and tubes including boys and girls bicycles.

For your society and businesses in the north, there would now be available different kind of timber. Solar panels, audio cassettes, all types of paints rice-mill spares, generators, engine oil, water pumps and spares, cement, motor vehicles, tyres and tubes, printing paper, typing and duplicating paper, roneo and photo-copying machines, surgical equipment, all available for your people in the north.

You dear sisters and brothers will no doubt be so happy at having those commodities sent for you. It is however only a beginning. The ultimate aim is to bring total peace and development to your areas. The government has stated that, this is a preliminary to a series of steps the government intends to take with the objective of bringing about a solution to the north-east problem.

Dear brothers and sisters, you will see that the government has now shown a sincere intention to work towards a lasting peace for you. But of course they cannot do it alone. What is important is the co-operation of the LTTE without which the governments efforts will remain futile. The LTTE has already responded by liberating ten policemen that they held as prisoners. They have also announced their willingness to begin peace negotiations.

However dear brothers and sisters, we must not forget that if peace negotiations fail to take place or take place and then fails, it is you who would suffer most. So what you have to do is to prevail upon the LTTE to keep negotiating with the government, until peace is achieved soon.