| News |
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| The
nordic Kangaroo Court "At this
moment SLMM does not have sufficient proof to be able to make (sic)
one of the parties responsible. However, it is important to underline
(sic) that lack of proof does not rule out the possibility that
one of the parties is in fact responsible. According to the evidence of eye witnesses narrated by the SLMM itself, both the Trawler and the Troop Ship were flying the Lion Flag. The Trawler was Chinese and its crew was comprised of 23 Chinese and 3 Sinhalese [and no Tamils]. The boats that attacked the Trawler were manned by both males and females clad in civilian attire who were shouting in the Tamil Language. After the Trawler sank the attackers looked for and shot at the survivors who were helplessly floating in their life-jackets. The only entity that has ever fired on a vessel flying the Lion Flag after Independence is the LTTE. The only entity apart from the Sri Lanka Navy that has the capacity to sink a vessel such as the 'Fu Yuan Ya 225' is the LTTE. The only entity that uses armed female combatants in Sri Lanka waters is the LTTE. The only entity operating armed boats with personnel who talk or shout in Tamil in Sri Lankan waters is the LTTE. The only entity with a motive to attack a vessel flying the Lion Flag or a Troop Ship is the LTTE. The only entity which is so base and inhuman as to be capable of seeking out and murdering helpless sailors floating in their life-jackets is the LTTE which, among many other atrocities, murdered almost 700 unarmed Sinhalese and Muslim Police Officers who had surrendered to them on 11.6.1990. The LTTE was, at the time of these attacks, seething with anger against the Navy for having sunk one of its vessels which was engaged in smuggling arms into Sri Lanka. The evidence, therefore, is overwhelming that it was the LTTE that committed both these atrocities. Looking at the other side of the coin, the Sri Lanka Navy has never attacked nor had any motive at any time to attack a ship flying the Lion Flag, and, in particular, a Troop Ship carrying the comrades in arms of its personnel. Our Armed Forces and all patriotic citizens have every reason to love China and prize our friendship with that great Country - for unlike sanctimonious Countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom which have sought to dominate, patronize and preach to us and tell us how to manage our internal affairs after letting us down in spades when we most needed their help, China is one of the only two Countries in the World that always stood by us through thick and thin and never ever tried to preach to us, dominate or patronize us or tell us how to manage our internal affairs. [The other such Country is Pakistan]. There was thus no way in which the Sri Lanka Navy could ever have even dreamed of attacking the Chinese Trawler even if it was not flying the Lion Flag. Clearly, the Sri Lanka Navy not only had an absence of a proved motive to attack one or both of the vessels in question, but had a proved absence of a motive to do so. The LTTE on the other hand had much to gain from doing so. When they attacked the Chinese Trawler, they attacked a civilian vessel flying the Lion Flag and thereby made evident to all sailors not only that the Lion Flag would give them no protection in Sri Lankan waters off the coast of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, but also that sailing under the Lion Flag would endanger their lives in such waters; they attacked the nationals of one of Sri Lanka's only two genuine friends in the entire international community: they dissuaded the legitimate utilization of our maritime resources by any persons other than those approved of by them; and dealt a blow at our economy. By attacking the Troop Ship they caused a measure of demoralization among members of the armed forces by making them know that they are and would be targets of the LTTE even when they were engaged in peaceful pursuits such as travelling aboard a ship from place to place while LTTE terrorists were never ever in such danger. Let us not forget that from the commencement of the present ceasefire, the LTTE has been continuously engaged in the commission of acts designed to erode the morale of the Armed Forces. The several murders and abductions of soldiers and policemen, the imposition of 'one way' traffic on the A9 highway; the attacks on the Army Camp at Point Pedro, the Police Station at Velvetithurai and the STF Camp at Kanchirankudah, and their several hartals each time the Police or the Armed Forces took any legitimate step against any member of the LTTE are but some of these instances. These terrorist activities of the LTTE after the signing of the MOU follow a pattern - a pattern which the perfidious Scandinavians with the Norwegians at their helm choose not to see. One reason advanced by the SLMM for holding that they cannot hold the LTTE or the Sri Lanka Government [once more equating the two] to have been responsible for either of these two atrocities was articulated by them as follows :- "Neither the Sri Lankan Government nor the leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) benefit from such attacks taking place since they are undermining their (sic) credibility and endangering the progress the parties have made so far." In the face of so many repeated violations of the MOU by the LTTE and the overwhelming evidence of the Government succumbing to LTTE pressure at every turn in order to preserve the so-called 'Peace Talks' at any cost, it is inconceivable that even a set of monitors so partial as the SLMM could have stooped so low as to equate the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE in this regard. If the reasoning of the SLMM is to be accepted, it must follow that the LTTE did not kidnap children or abduct adult civilians; that it did not murder patriotic Tamil civilians who, with consummate courage, gave information to the Armed Forces about the LTTE: that it did not abduct soldiers and police officers and keep them in illegal captivity; that it did not extort money from citizens; that it did not attack the camps at Point Pedro, Velvetithurai and Kanchirankudah; that it did not smuggle arms; that it did not abduct even some Nordic Monitors; and that it did not almost murder two Nordic Monitors off Delft by setting fire to a Trawler while they were on it - for every one of these atrocities was of such a nature as to undermine the credibility (if any) of the LTTE and to endanger the so called `Peace Process'. Yet, even the SLMM has no option but to accept the self-evident fact that these atrocities were committed by the LTTE. In their frantic efforts to absolve the LTTE of any wrong doing, these Norwegian led Scandinavians have now resorted to `Ghost Stories' by suggesting that the ships in question may have been attacked by some third force which is yet unknown to them, the Government and the LTTE !!! It is impossible to conceive how supposedly intelligent, supposedly mature and supposedly responsible persons, who are also supposedly impartial and supposedly impartially monitoring the current ceasefire in Sri Lanka, could bring themselves to utter something so patently ridiculous in addition to the several asinine pronouncements they have made so far. This last piece of sophistry on the part of these Scandinavians only shows the extents to which they are willing to descend to whitewash the LTTE. This `judgement' of the SLMM is not only an insult to the Sri Lanka Navy and the Sri Lanka Government: it is also an insult to the intelligence of all those by whom their `judgement' was intended to be read. For how much longer must we, the long suffering citizens of this Country, tolerate these scoundrels in our midst ??? |
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