Political party manifesto highlights

* Will introduce a constitution which has been subjected to the widest possible discussion .

* Seeks voter approval to use victory at this election as a legal mandate for the purpose of introducing the new constitution.

UNP: Once elected will end the autocratic executive power and empower parliament with checks and balances.

JVP: A new constitution will be introduced ensuring the rights of all the communities living in the country. The draft constitution will be framed within a year and put to the people in a national referendum. The party will abolish the executive presidency and executive power will be restored to parliament. 

Sihala Urumaya: A national state council consisting of 250 members will be created to ensure the implementation of the country's constitution. A 25 member Cabinet entrusted with the executive power will be created. Each minister will create an executive working council comprising opposition party members thus limiting party politics.

Ethnic problem and negotiations with the LTTE:

PA: The PA has embarked on a three-pronged programme of action to arrive at a political solution and the establishment of permanent peace. These were the eradication of terrorism, the introduction of constitutional amendments towards achieving a political solution and a program of national reconciliation.

The party will remain committed towards this programme of peace. The main aim is to safeguard the territorial integrity of the country.

UNP: Main objective is peace. The party will bring about a political solution acceptable to all those who are involved in the crisis within the framework of an undivided Sri Lanka.

The UNP will initiate a dialogue with all political parties, the clergy and civil society organisations to arrive at a broadbased political solution acceptable to all. The party will also get the LTTE involved in the process. The UNP will not introduce constitutional reforms until the political solution is accepted by the majority of all the communities.

Four Tamil Party Alliance: After ending the north-east war negotiations will be held with the LTTE and an international third party. . Steps will be taken to lift the proscription imposed on the LTTE.

JVP: Equal rights will be afforded to all the communities with no special status for any single community. Talks will be held with the LTTE and other groups to end the war in the north and east. The LTTE should give up its demand for a separate state. All military activities should cease during the talks. Negotiations will be held with a definite time frame for laying down the arms.

Sihala Urumaya: Political parties with separatist policies or those undermining the Sinhalese community will not be allowed to function. Guidelines will be laid down for political parties to operate within that framework.

Women's Rights:

PA: The party will take steps to introduce the Women's Charter. Special emphasis will be placed on minimising sexual harassment faced by women.

UNP: The party will enact laws relating to the Women's Charter to safeguard their rights. Special requirements and gender specific concerns will be recognized and prioritised in the formulation of state policies.

JVP: New laws will be enacted to ensure equal opportunities for women.

Sihala Urumaya: Women will be granted equal opportunities in every field. 

Youth:

UNP: A living Allowance of Rs. 2,000 along with training in the English language, computers and vocational skills will be given. A special programme will be launched for unemployed graduates.

JVP: The party will encourage the youth to join politics and state administration. The impediments against their development will be removed. 

Sihala Urumaya: All youth over 18 years will have the right to vote and any one over 21 can be an elected representative of the people.

(Please see Business section for economic policies of each party)

Rambukwelle shot at

By Shane Seneviratne

Unidentified gunmen from the top of a hill allegedly shot at random at a motorcade accompanying Mr. Rambukwella.

Religious ceremonies amid poll

By Shane Seneviratne

The Presidential Secretariat has agreed to release Rs. 4.3 million to the Urban Development Authority to co-ordinate the programme which will take place during the general elections, an official said. In a surprise move the UDA will be coordinating most of the programmes instead of the Buddha Sasana Ministry.

The decision to hold the religious ceremonies was taken when the President Chandirka Kumaratunga recently visited Kandy and met the Malwatta Mahanayaka thera. 

FM issues save-democracy call

Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar urged all Sri Lankan political parties to "get together and say to themselves that there is something bigger than winning and losing elections - that is preserving the whole democratic system."

He made these comments after his address to the committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defense Policy of the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, in response to a comment made by John Cushnahan (Ireland), the head of the 42 member European Union (EU) election monitoring team due in Sri Lanka shortly.

The Minister also answered questions raised by several other Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) covering a wide range of issues.

Mr. Cushnahan said that one vitally important thing at a time when Sri Lanka was facing an election was that the democratic parties themselves did not undermine the democratic process by condoning violence in the process of the electoral contest. 

"There is nothing more corrosive or cancerous than any ambivalence towards violence, vis-a-vis democracy, and I hope… politicians in your country will unite against any violence taking place in the electoral contest," he said.

Minister Kadirgamar in his comment said that neither he nor the government condoned violence at election time or at any other time.

Speaking on the ethnic issue, the Minister said the government was totally committed to a political, negotiated solution of the problem and did not believe that this conflict was going to be resolved by military means alone.

"We have had for over a year, and in the hands of the Norwegian government, who are the facilitators engaged by the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to promote a dialogue between us - we have had a permanent offer of a mutually agreed cessation of hostile military operations, we have a permanent offer to the LTTE to come to negotiations without preconditions. Those two offers have been rejected by the LTTE," the minister said.

He said they had been officially informed by the Norwegian government that the LTTE was not interested at this point of time in those offers. "It takes two parties to make peace and if one does not want to make peace, no amount of effort on the part of the other is going to bring peace," Mr. Kadirgamar said.

He said the draft constitution presented in parliament in August last year by the government might have had flaws, but it did have the virtue of laying out a scheme of devolution, decentralizing power on a very substantial scale, even more than in India, which is a federal state.

"We permanently invite the LTTE to come to the table, to eschew terrorism, to give up that particular method of trying to solve this problem... . Come and talk, everything is possible except a separate state," he said.

The minister also explained that the government was in a helpless situation of knowing very well that massive funding for "the LTTE is coming from Europe , North America and Australia....and this funding is being used to kill a lot of innocent people in our country."

"So therefore our appeal is a frank one. And that is when the anti-terrorism network is being put together, is being strengthened, we would ask and plead for more help in countering funding," he said.

The minister also spoke of another terrible manifestation of what is going on today in Sri Lanka — the conscription of child soldiers.

"I notice that many people who talk on human rights do not talk about that," he said.

Mr. Kadirgamar said that India today played a constructive role as far as the problem in Sri Lanka is concerned. "India is totally opposed to a separate state in Sri Lanka , as indeed all other countries are. India, like many other countries, wishes to see a political solution, a negotiated settlement on the basis of substantial autonomy," he said.

Mr. Kadirgamar also said that each country faced with a problem of this kind had to find its own solution, and that solution, in his opinion, was a political solution, because the roots of the problem were political. However, he added that there was a terrorist aspect to it as well.

Robert Evans (MEP United Kingdom) said there was a difference in the situation in Northern Ireland and say, the present situation in Afghanistan, in that the government in Sri Lanka did not allow any journalist or any media coverage of the war situation.

"There are live pictures from Kandahar or Kabul … from Northern Ireland or Chechnya… . But the Government in Sri Lanka does not allow any coverage from the Wanni or any coverage worth speaking of from Jaffna," he said.

Mr. Evans said he would suggest that they got a distorted picture in the rest of the world of what was happening there. He cited an example of the effect of the embargo on the north and added that all those things were inapt because there was no proper television coverage or proper media access. "We can only go on what we read in a variety of different newspapers," he said.

All EU states to ban LTTE

By M. A. Thalifdeen in New York

"The EU will be putting out a list of about 40 terrorist organisations by mid-December and the LTTE would be one of them," Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar said.

He said he had a series of meetings with EU officials last week, and also addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, enroute to the United Nations where he addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday. 

The September 11 terrorist attacks on the US had accelerated the whole anti-terrorist movement, he said, because of the involvement of "the mighty superpower". 

Asked about the positive fallout for countries like Sri Lanka, he said that there was not only a far greater awareness of the problem of international terrorism but also a far greater willingness to work at it. 

Mr. Kadirgamar described it as "the slow culmination of a process that began painfully some years ago on our part when we had to go round knocking on the doors of the world's chancelleries pleading our little cause. I used to say prophetically: 'Terrorism may not be your problem today, but it will be your problem tomorrow.'"