Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF ) Leader V. Anandasangaree yesterday called upon the Government to come out with its political proposal without any delay to win over the people to its side at a time when the LTTE is facing imminent defeat.

Speaking to The Island he said with the dawn of a new year expectations of the the vast majority was for finding a permanent peace both in word and deed.

"Everyone in this country should enjoy equal rights and privileges. That is what the average Sinhalese people also want. They don’t want any special treatment or privileges for any community and unless all of us in our conduct adopt this attitude and try to live as brothers loving each other we won’t ever find permanent peace in our motherland," he said.

"Knowing the President well I am confident that if he is left to decide without any interference by the others he will find a solution acceptable to everybody," he said.

"The people are undergoing hardships in the Vanni where they are detained by force by the LTTE. More than 250,000 people, who are now trapped in the Vanni have been pushed into Kilinochchi by the withdrawing LTTE. Among them are people from Mannar, Vavuniya and Kilinochchi.

"All of us Sri Lankans, irrespective of our language ,culture and religion are of Indian origin and the country belongs to all the persons. Those who love this country and call themselve patriots will not talk of sending some people back to India. Real patriots will love their country and its people and not their people alone," he said .

Anandasagaree said Tamil Nadu politicians did not realize the ground situation.

They were worried about Prabhakaran and not about the suffering of the poor people who were trapped in the Vanni.

The innocent school children who had just sat for O/L exams had been forecfully recruited as fighting cadres.

Even children in the orphanages had not been spared and were taken away by force.

He said he repeatedly requested the Tamil Nadu politicians to send a team to find out what was happening in Sri Lanka.

"The charge of annihilation of Tamils is a total fabrication of the LTTE which the so called Tamil National Alliance is trying to sell to the International community. There are Human Rights violations in the North no doubt, but there are several people involved in this.

"Any future Election in the North should be conducted in a free and fair manner. The election staff should be from all three communities without leaving it entirely in the hands of the Tamil officials who out of fear of the LTTE and someone else, would take a partisan view," he said.

At the 2004 elections, whoever went to cast their vote was given ballot papers. The officials did not bother to find out whether the vote demanded was that of a male or a female or a young one or an old one, he said.

In future, all groups who take contest elections should be relieved of their arms by the Government and sufficient security provided to them. For the last 15 years no election in the North and the East was held democratically, he said.

The monitoring teams recommended annulling of the elections held in Jaffna and demanded a fresh poll to be conducted. The foreign monitors like the EU and the Commonwealth condemned the manner the election officials and the voters. Some voters had voted 25 times, as reported by the Commonwealth observers, he said.