OVERSEAS SRI LANKANS MUST COUNTER THE MALICIOUS PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE SECURITY FORCES.

A.A.M.NIZAM MATARA.

SLMM Chief’s despicable statement incriminating the government for the death of aid workers in Muttur is another grand conspiracy to boost the image of the tiger terrorist outfit, and condemn the government in the international arena for violation of human rights. This is not the first time the so-called Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and its Heads have shown their open inclination and favourtism to the terrorists and attempted to blame the government for cooked up crimes. Although we could not have expected any censorship against these white-skinned scums under treacherous Chandrika/Ranil administrations at least some strong measures should have been taken to regulate the activities of these sheep-skinned pro-tiger elements when President Rajapakse ascended to the Presidency. The government and the patriotic masses should make every effort to expose the deliberate and flagrant human rights violations of the tiger terrorists, and absolve our gallant security forces from the malicious accusations being levelled against them.

The Swedish Head of the SLMM, Major-General Ulf Henricsson accused the Sri Lankan forces last Wednesday for being responsible for the murder of the 17 aid workers who belonged to the French branch of the international humanitarian agency Action Against Hunger, in Muttur during the recent confrontation between the government forces and the LTTE. Citing three reasons he says that the security forces had been present in Muttur, the government had prevented the truce monitors from going to the scene immediately after the bodies were discovered, and. confidential conversations with “highly reliable sources” had pointed to the culpability of security forces.
This white-skinned scum in his declining age with one foot in the grave and the other on the surface may be unable to take decisions on his own and fails to divulge who these “highly reliable sources” were who influenced his decision making. It is well-known that he had been in the company of terrorists leaders during the period in question and that he was blindly and stupidly parroting the statements of the terrorist outfit.

Two of Sri Lanka’s eminent legal luminaries Messrs. S.L.Gunasekera and Gomin Dayasiri have brilliantly crushed with concrete evidence the arguments presented by Henricsson. The Judicial Medical Officer who performed post-mortem examinations on the bodies, has determined the probable time of death was between the night of August 3 and August 4, 2006. Henricsson’s report claims the murders took place at sometime between 06.10 hrs and 06.40 hrs on the morning of Friday the August 4, 2006.

Whilst both Judicial Officer and Henricsson claiming that the deaths occurred on 4th Friday morning, Gunasekara/Dayasiri duo quite rightly point out that as per many news items published by the terrorist website TamilNet and their spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayan, that the LTTE troops had been in Muttur on the whole Friday. As per the TamilNet News Item "Objective accomplished, forces returned to CFA positions" – LTTE. Ilanthirayan, says that the LTTE troops, by midnight Friday, returned to their original positions as per February 22, 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. So, how can security forces carry out these 17 murders at a time when tiger terrorists were occupying Muttur?.

It is quite clear that Henricsson had made a deliberate, irresponsible statement accusing the Sri Lankan security forces for a crime clearly committed by the terrorist outfit in an area at a time that was under the control of the terrorists. These murders have been carried out in a similar pattern to the murders they carried out when over 600 police personnel surrendered to them on the instructions of the former President Mr. R.Premadasa.

This is not the first time that Henricsson has misused his official status to accuse the government and whitewash the terrorist outfit. On 4th June he released a SLMM Report on implementation of agreements reached at Geneva talks and it was full of implications and allegations against the government. The report was extensively criticised by the government, patriotic organisations and the media.

Daily News editorial “SLMM FARCE” dated 12.06.06 said “the LTTE has been portrayed as the aggrieved party which is at the mercy of the Government and was only defending itself against state aggression for survival. “.

The Island editorial of the same day was forthright and had the following to say: “Anyone, who cares to go through it, will see that it is nothing but a brief for the LTTE. In fairness to the SLMM, it makes no bones about its partiality to the Tigers, though the latter may not hesitate to assault some of its members until their bleed or try to blow naval vessels with them on board. The report in question, to begin with, looks like an LTTE document carrying SLMM chief Ulf Henricssons signature for credibility purposes. An appropriate title for it would have been Good Tigers and a bad government.’

It seems that it is a perennial problem with the SLMM Heads regardless whether they were from Norway or from Sweden. As per the wiretap contents published by the Website SVIK the former SLMM Head Norway’s Trond Furhovde in reference to the spate of LTTE attacks on Muslims in the autumn of 2002 that caused indignant protest by Muslims and Sinhalese, advises the LTTE political leader Pulithevan to place the blame on a "third party with stolen uniforms" – Furhovde says "I'm using all our resources to calm down the Sinhalese part of the population" and advises Pulithevan to ask Prabhakaran "to order his people to do the same".

Furhovde's successor Major General Trygve Tellefsen, "leaked information about the Navy's pursuit of a LTTE arms ship and helped it escape". Tellefsen also recommended that a stretch of Lankan coastal waters be allocated to the Sea Tigers for naval exercises.

Independent Tamil Websites, which aspire for liberation of Tamil masses from the oppression of tiger terrorists have expressed great concern about the Norwegian Major General Lars Johan Solvberg who is to replace the Swedish Henricsson. The new comer is the former Norwegian Army Chief who has wide experience in all aspects of Norwegian Army operations. He also heads a military consultancy services and they claim that with Norway’s close links with the terrorist outfit the newcomer instead of heading the SLMM would function as a consultant and advisor to the terrorist outfit.

At a time our gallant security forces are carrying out a remarkable service to contain and wipe out the terrorist threat it is highly imprudent to allow controversial figures to head bodies like SLMM. It would be far better if the government abolish bodies like SLMM which does not serve any fruitful purpose but provide a platform to criticise the government and whitewash the terrorists. Without leaving solely with the government the responsibility of countering the offensive propaganda directed at the armed forces, the patriotic masses and organisations throughout the world must make concerted efforts to take a major responsibility in this regard.

Like Messrs Gunasekera and Dayasiri every Sri Lankan has a birthright responsibility to counter the false propaganda being disseminated by the tiger terrorists, white-skinned scums, pro-tiger dollar vultures and political opportunists against the gallant security forces.