By Shamindra Ferdinando
The UN and INGOs deployed in
Sri Lanka during Eelam war IV could help the international community to
verify the validity of allegations contained in Sri Lanka’s Killing
Fields: War Crimes Unpunished, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa
said.
Those INGO chiefs as well as expatriate staff
deployed in the Northern and Eastern Provinces should be able to reveal
how the LTTE had used the civilian population in the Vanni for its
protection, Rajapaksa said in a brief interview with The Island over
the weekend.In his first comments since last Thursday’s passage of a
US-led resolution demanding reconciliation and accountability in Sri
Lanka, the Defence Secretary said that both the UN mission in Colombo
and its headquarters had been aware of the LTTE taking people hostage
as early as March-April 2007 during an early stage of the military
operations on the Vanni west front. In fact, the UN had been involved in
secret negotiations with the LTTE to secure the release of some of its
Tamil speaking staff detained for helping civilians to flee the LTTE
area, the Defence Secretary said. Read more....
