Former TNA parliamentarian Sivanathan Kisshor yesterday requested the displaced people of the Vanni, who had lost their vehicles and household items during the final days of the conflict, to hand over their complaints to the District Secretary of Mullaitivu Mrs Emelda Sukumar. The Security Forces Commander in Mullaitivu Major General Athula Jayawardena had agreed to release the vehicles and any other items of value in their custody.

Following discussions with the Minister of Justice and Law Reforms Milinda Moragoda he had given firm assurances that all the 11,000 or more LTTE youths in custody would be ‘spiritually and physically rehabilitated’ speedily by the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation and released to their parents in stages, he said.

"Furthermore Minister Moragoda has also assured me, that the AG’s Department had agreed to expeditiously evaluate the cases against LTTE suspects in Prison over a long period and release those against whom there were no charges and file cases against those whom there was sufficient evidence," he said.

Taking the population ratio in the Vanni district into account, he said he had been able to convince the Chairman of the University Grants Commission to increase the number of University entrants to the Medical and Engineering Faculties for 2010 from five to six.

He said it was almost two years since he was able to establish a Nurses Training School in Vavuniya, and though entry was permitted only to those who had qualified in Bio Science subjects, he had been able to persuade the authorities to grant entry to students who had qualified in subjects as Arts and History too.

"I have been able to persuade the Government to shift the present District Secretariat to the farm land on the A-9 Road and hand over the present Secretariat for the construction of a new three-storeyed wing for the Vavuniya Base Hospital so that it may accommodate 250 extra beds,’ He said.

Plans had been made to shift the Prison adjoining the present Courts complex in Vavuniya to a new location outside town, he said adding that Minister of Urban Development Dinesh Gunawardena had assured him that a Shopping Complex would be included in the new Town Development plan which would include plans to create Vavuniya as the economic hub between the North and the South.

He said senior presidential advisor and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Security, Resettlement and Development of the Northern Province MP Basil Rajapaksa had agreed to provide each and every IDP family with a house valued at Rs 350,000 with all basic utilities such as water and electricity.

The construction of a fully fledged Teachers’ Training College on land allocated in Mannar and International Cricket Stadium at Punnthottam in Vavuniya is under way and almost 90 per cent of the construction of the 16th University had been almost completed on 180 acres of land at Nelunkulam on the Mannar road, he said.

"All these important matters connected to development of the Vanni District, especially to uplift the lives of the youths of Vavuniya, had been achieved as a result of my practical approach to politics", he said.

"If I had practiced the confrontational politics practiced by my fellow Tamil National Alliance MPs who fled the country at the drop of a pin and came back only to issue statements which only caused death, destruction and untold misery to the Tamil people who had stood steadfastly behind them for decades, I would have achieved nothing".