President Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Friday that as people wholeheartedly greet the victory of the troops, there were efforts to belittle these victories and turn the attention of the people in other directions.
“There is a conspiracy with the support of certain international forces to achieve this sinister objective,” the President said during his address to the nation to announce the fall of Elephant Pass.
The President said that people would have already realized that the aim of these conspirators is to level unfounded charges against the Army Commander and by this to destroy the morale of troops, destabilize the country, tarnish the image of the country internationally, and make room for various international forces to interfere to grab our gains away from us.
He cited the assassination of MP Joseph Pararajasingham who was assassinated while in church at a Christmas service and the bomb attack on the office of the Uthayan newspaper published in Jaffna on World Press Freedom Day, as examples of this conspiracy.
The President added that when Thoppigala was being freed, an effort was made to distract from the importance of this victory by the abduction and assault of a journalist from an English language newspaper. He also said that the day after our troops freed Vidattaltivu dealing a major blow to the terrorists, a camp at Vavuniya for the Internally Displaced Persons was set ablaze.
“When my friend and Member of Parliament T. Maheshwaran was assassinated the blame for it was directed at the Government of Sri Lanka. However it was later known that the responsibility for it lay with the LTTE,” he added.
The President also said that the forces have achieved another great and historic victory with the fall of Elephant Pass and the A-9 route completely freed from the clutches of the LTTE.
“Our heroic troops are not only engaged in freeing the territory held by the Tigers. They are engaged in the great humanitarian battle to bring peace, freedom and democracy to the Tamil people of the North,” he said. | 
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