No surrender to third party - Defence Secretary

Dhaneshi YATAWARA

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa stressed that the Government cannot let the LTTE to surrender to a third party and emphasised that LTTE should be made to surrender only to the Government of Sri Lanka.

The Defence Secretary, speaking to the Sunday Observer said this while commenting on the United States’ request for the LTTE to surrender to a third party.

“Sri Lankan people had suffered from terrorism and it is our people who were killed by the LTTE. It is not fair for a foreign country to request that the LTTE be allowed to surrender to an outside party,” Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said speaking to the `Sunday Observer’. “This is an internal matter and we, as the Government, can assure that the problem can be settled internally,” he added.

At a daily press briefing on Friday US State Department spokesman Robert Wood had stated, “”The Tamil Tigers must stop holding civilians and thus placing them in harm’s way. We call on the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and surrender to a third party.” Yet, the US State Department has not specified who the third party is, media reports stated.

Wood had further stated that, the international community needs to provide assistance to a large number of displaced persons and they should be prepared to play a role to end the fighting. Commenting further the Defence Secretary said that US concern about the displaced civilians could be understood but their concern for the safety of a group of terrorists is questionable.

Meanwhile, reports from the Sri Lankan office of the United Nations state that the LTTE is recruiting children as young as 12 years and have been forced to fight in the frontline as terrorists are getting further cornered in the `No Fire Zone’, several Colombo based news agencies stated. A spokesman from the Sri Lankan UN office has stated that the civilians are sitting there on the sand and groups of armed LTTE come along and demand a member of the family to join them and ask for one or two children and that LTTE cadres are running around grabbing people. Accordingly these children were not seen again by their families.

Assuring the evacuation of each and every person trapped inside the `No Fire Zone’, the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that the ongoing military operations will continue until Prabhakaran is caught and till the Army completely captures the land. “Almost 98% of the civilians trapped inside the `No Fire Zone’ have reached the cleared areas and the humanitarian operations of the Sri Lanka Army will be to liberate these people as their first priority,” Rajapaksa added.

The Defence Secretary further confirmed that irrespective of LTTE propaganda taking place locally as well as internationally, the mission to rescue people trapped in the `No Fire Zone’ will continue. Condemning the allegations on the Government of mass scale civilian casualties Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said, “The Sri Lanka Army planned the operation in a very professional manner, totally avoiding attacks on civilians. It is proven that the LTTE attack civilians as well during their defensive manoeuvres.”

He further stated that during interrogations the escaping civilians have stated that they were attacked by the LTTE for various reasons. “With the visuals we received from the UAVs of the Sri Lanka Air Force it was proved beyond doubt that it is the LTTE who have killed and injured innocent civilians who were trying to escape,” Gotabhaya Rajapaksa added.