Box
55292, 300 Borough Drive, Toronto, Ontario M1P 4Z7 Canada
Website:
www.sluna.org
E-mail: sluna@idirect.com
Media
Release: January 21, 2006
The
Tamil Tiger Terrorists have carried out 76 separate attacks during the last
six weeks from December 2, 2005 to January 14, 2006 mainly targeting Sri
Lanka’s security forces causing the death of 78 service personnel and
further injuring 107 others. The
civilian casualties in the same period numbered 36 killed and 30 injured,
most of whom are Tamils considered political dissidents by the LTTE, whilst
8 Moslems and 2 Sinhalese are amongst those gunned down.
The details of the incidents could be viewed at the following
website, the url for which is http://www.spur.asn.au/After_signing_the_so-called_JM.htm
The
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has as usual denied responsibility
for the attacks on the armed services, claiming that it is the work of
disgruntled civilians demonstrating their anger against the security forces.
These denials have been totally rejected as the civilians would not
be resorting to claymore mine attacks nor would they have explosives laden
boats for suicide attacks at sea. However,
it is true that a section of the civilians including students have been
instigated to attack the security forces with grenades given to them by the
LTTE, and such civilians used as human shields for armed attacks by the
terrorist cadres on military checkpoints and camps with the specific
intention of provoking retaliatory attacks that would result in civilian
casualties.
The
LTTE has violated the Ceasefire Accord (CFA) from the day they signed it in
February 2002, with the total violations exceeding 7000 up to now, including
the killing of over 550 civilians and security forces personnel, abduction
and forced conscription of over 3500 children, and a host of human rights
abuses such as torture, assaults, threats, extortion. etc., as reported on
by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, UNICEF and Human Rights Watch.
Unarmed
LTTE cadres were permitted to freely move into all parts of the island to
engage in political activity in order that they may transform themselves
from a purely military outfit into a political party ready to take its place
within the democratic framework in terms of the CFA, although ironically all
others were debarred from entering the areas illegally controlled by the
LTTE according to this lopsided accord drawn up with the help of the
Norwegian peace facilitator. The
expected transformation of the LTTE into a democratic political entity
during the internationally supervised peace process never took shape, with
the LTTE taking advantage of the free movement allowed to it to establish
armed cells everywhere capable of causing serious damage to public security
and order.
The
upsurge of violence and the threat of resumption of hostilities by the LTTE
has made it necessary for the state to urgently carry out cordon and search
operations in the interest of public safety, to flush out suicide bombers,
pistol gang members, trained assassins and any hidden arms and ammunition in
the capital city and elsewhere. The
security forces are under orders to use force only in self-defence as the
state is obliged to uphold the ceasefire even though an undeclared war has
been unleashed by the terrorists. Faced
with confrontations orchestrated by the LTTE and daily attacks causing death
and serious injury to servicemen giving rise to mounting tension, there have
been allegations of a few incidents of human rights violations on the part
of the armed forces which are being investigated by the authorities.
The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) in their Briefing
Number 5 indicated that some of these show signs of LTTE involvement with
the intention of pinning the blame on the security services.
We too join other Sri Lankan communities in calling on the
authorities to speedily investigate all allegations, and to prosecute those
responsible with the least delay.
The
security forces are required to maintain law and order in most trying and
difficult circumstances by putting their lives constantly at risk in the
face of provocative attacks by these brutal Tamil Tiger Terrorists, and
uphold a non-existent CFA which is being blatantly violated by the LTTE on a
daily basis. They
refused to renounce violence and terrorism, and have used the peace process
to buy time to establish a fascist dictatorial administration in the
un-cleared areas of the Vanni presently controlled by them.
They kept away from the Tokyo peace talks in June 2003 which
would have required them to commit themselves to a human rights code, and
avoided further talks thereafter.
The LTTE reneged on the peace deal mediated by India in 1987 and have
unilaterally broken off peace talks on two other occasions, as they are
pursuing the same goal of a separate mono-ethnic Tamil state by force of
arms, which goal has eluded them for a period in excess of two decades
We
are dumbfounded to say the least as to how the international community which
does not negotiate with or tolerate terrorism aimed at their interests, made
up of the Norwegian peace facilitator, the SLMM (Nordic Monitoring Mission),
and the major powers who are the co-chairs of the Sri Lanka peace process,
are powerless to restrain the terrorism of the LTTE, (with some among them
including Canada allowing the Tamil Tigers to fundraise and carry on
propaganda within their jurisdictions) other than making periodic calls
asking the parties to resume the farcical peace process.
The Asia Times reported in their On Line edition of December 22, 2005
that the very same LTTE was smuggling weapons for use of the Al Qaeda and
Taleban in the Afghan theatre against NATO forces operating there in
exchange for Afghan heroin and money, vide url http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL22Df01.html
. The international community
should realize that they cannot be selective in the treatment of terrorists,
and the resulting destabilization in any region will have a debilitating
impact on other regions as well.
Yours very truly,
Mahinda Gunasekera
Honorary President
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