The Sri Lankan government's main ally vowed on Friday to quit the ruling coalition unless President Chandrika Kumaratunga ditches plans to share tsunami aid with Tamil Tiger rebels, giving her five days to comply.
The support of the Marxist Peoples Liberation Front (JVP), which has 39 seats in the 225-member Sri Lankan legislature, is essential for the survival of Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance government, which has been in office for only one year. "She has time until midnight on June 15 to do away with the pact and if she fails to do it, we will withdraw from the government on the 16th," Somawansa Amarasinghe, the JVP leader, told reporters. |