Parliamentarian Sri Kantha stated that for the first time the United National Party, Tamil National Alliance and the Jantha Vimukthi Peramuna were jointly voting against the financial bills.

He stated that the government urgently requires money to meet the war expenditure. The financial bills are only to secure money for the defence expenditure. The government is fighting the LTTE under the pretext of a war against terrorism.

He charged that Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanike made an accusation that TNA did not co-operate in finding a solution through the All Party Representative Group. But, the reality is that the government did send any invitation to the TNA to participate in the deliberations.

He continued that the national ethnic problem cannot be resolved by clinging on to a unitary nature of State. The war has been going on for 22 long years during the tenures of 5 Executive Presidents. About 20,000 Tamils fled to India last year as refugees. During the last few months, 198 people have been killed in Jaffna. It is in this context that the government proposes new financial bills to collect money to pursue military operations.

The government proposes to collect money for war by levying taxes but it must not be forgotten that this war cannot be won even during the period of grand children of warmongers.

“ Mr. Chariman! Time is running out not only for me to wind up my speech but also for the government to go”, Sri Kantha quipped.

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