Chandrika sees her life in danger over aid deal

President Chandrika Kumarat-unga made the remarks at the opening of a two-day aid meeting attended by more than 125 participants including the World Bank, Japan and the United States aimed at helping the island nation rebuild its economy after two decades of civil war and last December's tsunami.

Kumaratunga vowed to the donors that the country would go ahead with a proposed deal to distribute tsunami aid in tandem with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam despite threats from opponents of the plan.

"In the decisions we are called upon to take, the lives of some of us are in extreme danger," Kumaratun-ga said, adding that most of her coalition government supported the move.

She said that there is a threat "from within" her government as well, in an apparent reference to opposition to the aid distribution deal from her Marxist ally, the JVP, or People's Liberation Front.

The World Bank, speaking on behalf of the donors, said they supported her aim for a deal with the LTTE and noted it could boost the island's peace hopes.

"Development partners are strongly supportive and wish you success," said World Bank official Praful Patel.

Kumaratunga assured the international donors, who had pledged two billion dollars for tsunami reconstruction and another billion for budgetary support, that she will also make good on a promise to work with the LTTE and strengthen peace moves.

"Our commitment to this cause will be steadfast despite various objections from extremists, from various groups," Kumaratunga said. "I know and can assure all of you that the vast majority of Sri Lankan people stand with us."

Shortly after she ended her lengthy address, a Buddhist monk legislator from the opposition National Heritage Party, Athuraliya Ratana, made an impromptu speech denouncing the proposed joint mechanism.

"The president has no right to have any deal with the LTTE," the monk said at the tightly-guarded meeting in the central hill resort.

Kumaratunga made no reply to the monk, but in her speech delivered minutes earlier vowed that the government will press ahead with a new poverty reduction strategy coupled with peace moves.

"We recognise that no economic development will be sustainable, no poverty reduction will be effective for more than a couple of years, unless there is political stability and peace in the country," she stressed.

The president lost her right eye in a Tamil rebel suicide assassination attempt in December 1999, just three days before elections. Kumaratunga launched a peace drive with the Tigers in August 1994 but it collapsed in April 1995.

After winning a second term in December 1999, she invited Norway to help broker peace on the island where more than 60,000 people have been killed in three decades of ethnic bloodshed.

Kumaratunga said the proposed joint mechanism with the Tiger rebels would not be a direct element of the peace process, but would help build confidence between the two sides.