Declaring that their patience was ‘‘wearing thin’’, LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran today set a deadline of December 31 for Sri Lanka’s new President Mahinda Rajapakse to come up with a ‘‘reasonable’’ political settlement to the country’s ethnic conflict or face the risk of the rebels setting up a separate state. Talking tough, the 51-year-old Prabhakaran, in his much-awaited annual policy statement, said his men were ‘‘not prepared to be tolerant any longer’’ and that he was making a final appeal to the government for a political settlement to the ethnic problem. ‘‘If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our homeland,’’ he said at the end of a week-long commemoration of 18,000 Tiger guerrillas who died in the fight against the security forces. ‘‘Our people have lost patience, hope and reached the brink of utter frustration,’’ Prabhakaran added . ‘‘They are not prepared to be tolerant any longer. The new government should come forward soon with a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people. This is our urgent and final appeal,’’ he declared, and added that the President had ‘‘failed to grasp the fundamentals and basic concepts’’ behind the decades-long war waged by the Liberation Tigers. Prabhakaran’s statement comes two days after President Rajapakse, in his own policy address, said he refused to recognise the LTTE’s concept of a traditional homeland for the Tamils in Sri Lanka’s North and East, and ruled out a federal solution to share power with Tamils. Although he said he was willing to re-start stalled peace negotiations to end the conflict that’s claimed over 60,000 lives, Rajapakse wanted to widen the list of negotiators to include other representatives of the minority community. The President also insisted that he would review the Norwegian-brokered truce that is now in force between troops and the LTTE to make it more stringent and rule out rebel infringements such as abductions and recruitment of child soldiers. Saying that LTTE was now at a ‘‘historic turning point’’ in its struggle for self-determination, Prabhakaran said he lost faith in the commitment of Sinhalese leaders in the south of the country to settle the rebels’ demand.He said there was a vast difference between the position of Rajapakse and the Tamil demands for autonomy. But they were willing to give the new president time. ‘‘This new government is extending its hand of friendship towards us and is calling our organisation for peace talks .It claims that it is going to adopt a new approach towards the peace process,’’ the LTTE chief said. ‘‘Having carefully examined his policy statement in depth, we have come to a conclusion that President Rajapakse has not grasped the fundamentals, the basic concepts underlying the Tamil national question.’’
