CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

AP report of June 7, 2008 titled ‘Bus Bombings Kill 23 People in Sri Lanka’-An Open Letter To Associated Press New York, NY USA

Mahinda Gunasekera Canada

Associated Press
New York, NY
USA

Dear Sir/Madam,

AP report of June 7, 2008 titled ‘Bus Bombings Kill 23 People in Sri Lanka’

In your report it has been stated that the Sri Lankan Government blamed the Tamil Tigers for these callous attacks against civilians, which fit into the pattern of their ruthless acts of atrocities committed over the past 25 years. We are at a loss to understand why you always refer to the Tamil Tigers as “rebels”, whereas they have been designated as an international terrorist group by the USA, UK, India, Canada, Malaysia, the EU and some other countries.

What is also bewildering is a quote made by one Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council that it was a “tit-for-tat kind of retaliation” by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists, who accuse the military of killing ethnic minority Tamils with mines and air raids. How does Perera conclude that the bombings in Colombo have been carried out by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists, when the LTTE spokesperson Nadesan told BBC that they do not target civilians nor do they carry out assassinations of political leaders. Whom are we to believe? For Jehan Perera to make such a statement, he has to be a trusted confidante of the Tamil Tigers, who authorized him to say what he did. The LTTE did not admit to having killed Rajiv Gandhi for over 15 years, later said it was a mistake, and asked India to forget the past. Has the LTTE started admitting to such mistakes relating to the killing of civilians and other leaders, and turned to Jehan Perera to spin it out with a twist making counter allegations against the government’s security forces?

The government has stated that a few civilians living in the usurped territory held by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists who were being used as human shields too had been affected in only four out of 173 air raids on LTTE positions. The attack on the Communications Centre said to have been manned by civilians for the LTTE was considered a valid military target. It is not the government that is using land mines and every other type of IED including explosives laden booby traps in the military operations, but the LTTE that has extensively mined the terrain to defend the fast receding boundaries of their illegally usurped territory in the Vanni region of Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu districts.

Yours very truly,

Mahinda Gunasekera

Copy to: National Peace Council

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