The Presidential Secretariat yesterday released a response to the letter sent to President Mahinda Rajapaksa by the members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on Thursday turning down the invitation from the President to attend a meeting where he met with leaders of parties representing minority communities.
The Presidential Secretariat said that the call by the TNA to halt armed operations by the Security Forces is singularly unfortunate since it results in manipulating the plight of civilians trapped by the LTTE and noted that no allocation of responsibility has been made upon the LTTE, for the entrapment and confinement of innocent civilians, by the TNA.
“This appears to the Government to be a startling omission,” it said.
Some of the specific issues raised by the TNA are the allegations that the “Sri Lankan armed forces have been bombing the Safe Zone areas by air and artillery fire, killing on an average between 40 to 50 civilians on a daily basis and causing grave injuries to civilians many times more.”
The President informed the Tamil and Muslim representatives on Thursday, the armed forces were exercising maximum restraint in the current phase of the humanitarian operation.
“However, there have been instances where the LTTE has fired missiles at our helicopters from within the No-fire Zone. The figure of 40 to 50 civilians being killed daily is, we believe, a total exaggeration,” it said.
Referring to the allegation by the TNA that despite the grave humanitarian crisis prevalent in these areas, the Government has evicted all international humanitarian organizations and has since imposed restrictions on supplies to these areas, the Presidential Secretariat said this allegation was patently false.
“International organizations were asked to move out of this area and relocate to Vavuniya in September 2008 because of the prospect of fighting between the Armed Forces and the LTTE and we could not guarantee the safety of these personnel in such circumstances. There has been no restriction on food, medicine, shelter and other basic humanitarian items,” it said.
In response to the TNA statement that “no independent media is permitted access to this area to report on the situation really prevailing in this area”, the President’s Office said that as in the humanitarian agencies (except the ICRC) media cannot be permitted to go to areas where there is fighting as the Government cannot guarantee their safety.
“With LTTE’s track record of placing the responsibility on the Armed Forces even when the LTTE kills civilians, allowing the media to have access to these areas will not be prudent,” it said.The Presidential Secretariat also denied allegations by the TNA that Government bombing campaigns have destroyed medical facilities. “Not a single hospital has been destroyed by aerial bombing or any other artillery fire from Sri Lankan forces. All the hospitals are intact except in some locations where the LTTE has removed all the fittings and fixtures and rendered these institutions unusable,” it said.
The President’s Office also denied the TNA claims that there are around 300,000 civilians in the relevant areas and insisted there are only about 70,000 civilians in the area.
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