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Sri Lankan visit was private: Faleiro

By V.S. Sambandan

COLOMBO, FEB. 18. The former Minister of State for External Affairs, Eduardo Faleiro, MP, today concluded a week-long private visit to Sri Lanka, during which he travelled to the central plantation districts and the northern Jaffna peninsula.

Describing his visit as one that was "entirely personal, with no political undertone," Mr. Faleiro told The Hindu that his travel was planned before the dissolution of Parliament and continued as scheduled because "there was nothing to reconsider as there was no political angle to my visit whatsoever."

Mr. Faleiro said that during his overnight visit to Jaffna he was "throughout escorted by the Sri Lanka Army, which was due to the good offices of the Indian High Commission."

He restricted his travel to Government-held regions of the northern Peninsula. Before his travel to Jaffna, Mr. Faleiro visited Kandy and Nuwara Eliya in central Sri Lanka, which have a significant presence of Indian-origin Tamils who work on the plantations.

Denying media reports here that he was an "emissary" of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and that he had travelled by road through rebel-held Kilinochchi, Mr. Faleiro said he flew to Jaffna and that he was not in the island as "anyone's emissary." The visit, he said, was a "personal one, with my family," and that "it was only incidental" that he had "taken the opportunity to visit important cities."

Mr. Faleiro, who met the Sri Lanka Foreign Affairs Minister and other political leaders, denied meeting the LTTE leadership.

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