Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena yesterday challenged the UNP to canvass for the urgently needed USD 1.9 billion loan facility if it genuinely appreciated the armed forces’ triumph over the LTTE.

Addressing the press at the Information Department, the minister urged the UNP to throw its weight behind the SLFP-led coalition. Recalling an earlier UNP bid to block a USD 500 million loan from the HSBC, he asked the UNP to back Sri Lanka’s call for USD 1.9 billion facility from the IMF.

The UNP wouldn’t be in a dilemma today had it publicly supported the war against the LTTE, he said.

The UNP did everything possible to thwart the agreement with the HSBC by declaring that a future UNP government wouldn’t honour it.

The minister said that the UNP had wanted to know whether President Rajapaksa would follow former South African leader Nelson Mandela or the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. He said that the Sri Lankan situation couldn’t anyway be compared with either. He emphasised that there was absolutely no need for President Rajapaksa to follow any other leader. He would tackle the post-LTTE era the way he had defeated the LTTE’s military challenge, the minister said.

Responding to queries, he said that the decision to go for local government elections in the Vavuniya and Jaffna districts was essentially a critical part in the overall measures to restore democracy in the North. Dismissing JVP criticism that there had been undue haste

on the part of the government to call polls, he said that both districts hadn’t been affected by the recent fighting. Both Jaffna and Vavuniya areas where people would go for polling hadn’t been affected by the displacement of people due to hostilities.

Referring to a recent statement attributed to Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena, Yapa assured the UNP that the government wouldn’t hinder their political activity in the North.

Commenting on international criticism of Sri Lanka’s conduct during the war and a threat to withhold the IMF facility, he said that those who had been shedding tears for civilians here ignored loss of civilian life in many other theatres of war including Pakistan, Gaza strip, Afghanistan and Iraq. He said that nowhere in the world could armed forces of a particular country guarantee 100 per cent civilian safety.