Opening the Emergency debate in Parliament for the Opposition on Wednesday (9) Badulla District UNP member Lakshman Seneviratne said the figures of the losses suffered by the Armed Forces, presented in the House, did not seem to tally with the figures given on the Defence Website and the Information Department Website. There were always different figures of casualties by different government agencies. Therefore, the figures could not be accepted as correct.

He said that the actual figures appeared to be higher than 93 personnel killed and 686 injured during the last month. It appeared that the government was not giving the actual figures of the number of officers and men killed and wounded in action.

TNA Group Leader S. Sampanthan said the government was not following a policy of resolving the problems of the Tamil speaking people of the Eastern Province as it appeared that it was not prepared to merge the North and East that was essential for an acceptable settlement to the Tamil speaking people of the two provinces that had been their traditional area of habitation for several centuries.

Sampanthan read out from a lengthy document about the Tamil people’s claims to the two provinces and said it appeared that past and present governments had not considered their aspirations but had continued to ensure the welfare of the Sinhalese who were a minority in the region. As long as the same policy was followed it was not possible to find an acceptable solution to the problem.

The newly sworn in SLMC member A. M. Mohamed Naushad, making his maiden speech, said that the Eastern Province appeared like a military camp with so many checkpoints so that the people who were liberated from LTTE control after more than two decades were wondering whether this was what they were going to get from the government.

He said it was necessary to ensure that all ethnic groups in the Eastern Province live in amity so that they will not have to face the same problems as in the past. Therefore, he would like to urge the government and all other parties to work towards the achievement of peace and unity in the province.

Minister of Disaster Relief Services Ameer Ali said the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem, who had got ten Muslim youth from Trincomalee to go to Kandy to strengthen his political power had now started taking about 100 to 200 outsiders for electioneering in the East. Recently the SLMC had got a youth of the East murdered and if Hakeem takes outsiders with him on the pretext that he had not been provided security it will only create unrest among the residents of the area.

"All candidates had been provided with adequate police security and Hakeem too had been given security so that he did not have to take outsiders with him for any purpose. "Though we asked him to come to an understanding with the government and all Muslim members to unite so that a Muslim could be appointed the Chief Minister he insisted that all candidates should contest under the tree symbol and did not agree to our proposal for unity. Today the tree had been eaten up by the elephant and Hakeem was riding on the back of the elephant. Hhe may in the future start riding on the back of the Tiger. He had betrayed the cause of the Muslims and once represented the Ampara District but today he has gone to the Trincomalee District because he had been rejected by the people of Ampara," the minister said.

JVP Anuradhapura District member Ranaweera Pathirana said the entire provincial council system did not provide solutions to the people of remote areas whether in the east or any other part of the country. The neglected rural areas of all districts including those of the Anuradhapura District still remained in the same state though various political parties were trying to get Chief Ministers or ministers from their parties appointed. Therefore what should be done was to ensure that neglected areas were developed.

Ven Ellawala Medhananda Thera said the TNA leader had given statistics about the ethnic proportions of the Eastern Province to prove that Tamil people had been living in the east from very ancient times. But the fact was that they were people of recent origin in these areas. During the British colonial period when a census was taken the Sinhalese population of the country was 2.74 million people in 1912, but there were only 52,824, and 28,363 Tamil people in the north and east clearly showing that there was no historic habitation of the Tamil people as a majority in these areas as claimed by member Sampanthan.