COLOMBO, Dec 6: The Sri Lankan government on Wednesday decided not to ban the Tamil Tiger rebels and instead reintroduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act that was effective before the February 2002 truce.

The government took the decision at a crucial cabinet meeting scheduled to discuss new measures to control terrorism after a spate of bomb blasts by the rebels. "The government decision pushes for strong curbs on terrorist activities, which will involve LTTE activities and all persons who in anyway help them," a government official said.

The law gives state security forces sweeping powers to detain anyone for six months without a warrant and raid any home to prevent threat to national security.

While some human rights activists say that the re-introduction of the PTA would cause fear psychosis, especially among Tamils, politicians argue that the PTA is compulsory to prevent the LTTE terror missions.

“The government is seriously committed to formulating a political solution acceptable to the Tamil people. But it is also committed to eradicating terrorism,” a government defence spokesman, Minister Keheliye Rambukwella, said when contacted.

Analysts say that despite the PTA’s re-introduction, the decision not to ban the LTTE will be a ray of hope for the country’s ailing peace process.

Peace lobbyists and even those not supporting the LTTE had protested against the banning of the LTTE on the grounds that it would cripple any chance of peace as the government could not carry out negotiations with a proscribed organisation.

Proscription of the Liberation Tigers Act was passed in 1998. The LTTE was de-proscribed in September 2002 before the parties engaged in peace talks in Thailand.

“I urged President Mahinda Rajapakse not to go ahead with the ban which would have only obtained international sympathy for the Tamil Tiger rebels and made a permanent solution to the ethnic conflict a total impossibility,” V. Anandasangaree, head of the Tamil National Alliance, who is estranged from the LTTE, told Dawn.

“I have specified to President Mahinda Rajapakse that he should immediately take steps to lay before the Tamil people a political solution to the problems faced by them,” the veteran Tamil politician who is an outspoken critic of the rebels said.