Sri Lankan Socialist Equality Party General Secretary Wije Dias has sent a second letter to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leadership demanding the release of three SEP members. Below we reprint excerpts from the letter which was faxed to the LTTE's offices in London, England on August 12.

In my earlier letter, I informed you about the arrest and detention of two of Socialist Equality Party (SEP) members by one of your leaders, Theepan, in the Kilinochchi district. I sent that letter as soon as I received reliable information that our two members were arrested on July 26, 1998 while putting up a SEP political poster in Tharmapuram. In that letter we demanded the immediate release of our two members and expected a favorable reply from you.

Not only have you not acknowledged the receipt of that letter faxed to your office in London, you have now taken further repressive action against our members in the same area. A third member of the SEP, Rajendran Sudarshan, has also been arrested and detained by the LTTE in Kilinochchi. These arrests and detentions are a grave violation of the democratic rights of our organization.

The SEP, as the Sri Lankan section of the Fourth International, is well known throughout the world for its consistent struggle in defence of the democratic rights of the Tamil minority repressed for years by various capitalist governments of Sri Lanka. Our stand against the racism carried out by the Sri Lankan state against the Tamils and our vigorous campaign for the withdrawal of Sri Lankan state forces from the North and East of the country, has won many supporters in this country, the Indian sub-continent and internationally.

The campaign we have waged to inform and mobilize all those concerned about democratic rights against the arrest of our members is gathering support on a world scale.

As in the numerous instances of the victimization of our members by the Sri Lankan state for defending the democratic rights of the Tamil people, we can assure you that we will mobilize world opinion on this issue and will not rest until our three members are released without harm.

Yours sincerely,

Wije Dias
General Secretary - SEP (Sri Lanka).

See Also:
International campaign demands release of Sri Lankan socialists
[13 August 1998]
WSWS editorial board chairman demands release of Sri Lankan socialists
[8 August 1998]