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Archive for September 19th, 2007

“I consider this is an occasion when, in keeping with the traditions of the navy, you have discharged in full measure your pledge to defend the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the motherland; you have proved by this success that the Sri Lanka Navy is capable of defeating any enemy force within Sri Lanka’s territorial waters or in international waters.” So said President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his special Message of Tribute to members of the Sri Lanka Navy, who participated in the successful attack on the LTTE’s arms vessels last week.

The President was participating in the official ceremonial reception at the Trincomalee Naval Base to pay national tribute to the navy personnel who took part in destroying the three LTTE arms vessels in international waters.

President Rajapaksa’s message said that in the prevailing situation, when the LTTE has been weakened militarily, the interdiction of the means of its obtaining arms from outside sources and thereby weakening them further is major victory for people and the country.

In this attack the Sri Lanka Navy destroyed what is considered a major floating arms storehouse of the LTTE, and led to the destruction of a large quantity of arms, ammunition and aircraft parts that were destined for the LTTE’s armoury.

Honoured in this ceremony were the crews of the naval vessels, the flagship SLNS “Sayura”, SLN vessels “Samudura”, “Shakthi” and “Suranimala”, and the two naval supply vessels 520 and 521 that participated in this successful attack on the LTTE vessels.

This ceremony of tribute was organized in keeping with the naval tradition of honouring sailors who return home after a successful naval exercise in the high seas against an enemy.

The attack by the Navy destroyed the LTTE arms transport vessels “Manyoshi”, “Seshin” and “Portia” nearly 600 nautical miles (1,600 km) south east of Dondra Head at the southern tip of Sri Lanka, on September 10 & 11. The destruction of these vessels and their huge cargo of warlike material have dealt a severe blow to the LTTE’s military capabilities, which comes after the Sri Lankan Forces have cleared the Eastern Province of LTTE terrorists and also cleared of the LTTE’s control of its key infiltration and Sea Tiger staging bases at Silavatura and Ariyala areas near Mannar.

The President’s Message also said: “I hereby declare my deep satisfaction and appreciation of your challenging and heroic exercise in destroying the enemy vessels in the face of the heavy firing by the terrorists.

“It must be clearly stated that by preventing arms getting into the hands of the enemy you have saved a large number of lives.

“By this victory you have demonstrated your patriotism, dedication to duty, collective capability, determination, and the success of your training and professionalism. By this means the honour and respect of the Sri Lanka Navy reaches greater heights, and this action will be writ in gold in the history of our Navy.

“May you have the strength and courage to achieve such victories in the future, too’”.

On his arrival President Rajapaksa reviewed the vessels of Navy that participated in the attack on the LTTE craft as they were ceremonially escorted to the Trincomalee Harbour by Navy vessels, to receive the Tribute of the Nation.  Later the President was accorded a Guard of Honour by 100 members of the Sri Lanka Navy at the Trincomalee Naval Jetty.

After the ceremony of National Tribute to the Navy, the President declared open the new naval jetty of the Sri Lanka Navy’s Eastern Base at Trincomalee, built entirely by the civil engineers of the Sri Lanka Navy. “Jetliner” the passenger vessel that had earlier come under attack by the LTTE when it was transporting large numbers of security forces personnel returning on leave, which is also used by the Navy to transport civilians between Kankesanturai and Trincomalee, was the first vessel to lay anchor at new jetty.

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A Sri Lankan government Minister, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, claimed that once the LTTE rebels are defeated the organization’s leader, Mr. Prabhakaran, might flee to Eritrea.

In addition to Eritrea, the Sri Lanka government has been blaming Norway for siding with the separatist LTTE rebels. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is proscribed as a terrorist organization by the European Union, U.S and other nations however Norway has remained close with the LTTE. According to the Norwegian government, it is attempting to mediate a peace plan to stop the violence but the Sri Lanka government Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse recently said “without defeating terrorism, we can’t have a political settlement.”

The United States state department has often showed concern about the ability of the Norwegian government to curb pro-terrorist organization activities on its ground, as the Sri Lanka government also appealed for the end of pro-LTTE fundraisings done by ethnic Tamils living in Norway.

Jeyaraj Fernandopulle said that if the LTTE founder is to flee, “asylum, safety and security to Prabhakaran and his men” will be available in Eritrea. He also said weapons and ammunition for the LTTE are “loaded in Eritrea into the LTTE ships to be taken to Vanni (the LTTE base).” Such Sri Lanka accusations have been mounting since a United

States Senate Foreign Relations Committee (USSFRC) report claimed that the Eritrean government “provides direct assistance to the LTTE” was revealed this year.

The founder of the LTTE is currently wanted by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) for “terrorism, murder, organized crime and terrorism conspiracy” charges and a warrant has been issued by four countries including India for his arrest.

Despite the near international criticism of the LTTE organization, it has vast support from Diaspora ethnic Tamil population and most analysts agree that ethnic Tamils have been underrepresented and oppressed by the central government in Sri Lanka for many decades. Last week, the pro-LTTE Tamils living in South Africa protested against the government of Sri Lanka when the Sri Lankan cricket team played in Johannesburg.

A Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said today that bodies of at least 50 people were found in Sri Lanka last month alone. The AHRC said “given the unwillingness and inability of the Sri Lankan government to guarantee the right to life and justice…the AHRC urges the UN. Human Rights Council to intervene with urgency.” The Sri Lanka government is accused also by regional acitivists, press freedom advocates and various human rights organizations. Some analysts say the increasing government human rights violations correlate with the increase of LTTE insurgency, as the authorities continue to curtail rights to those who support the insurgency.

The LTTE has been fighting for a separate state since 1972, and the organization depends on smuggled weapons bought on the black market to be smuggled in by sea. Around 80,000 people have died since the LTTE insurgency began in Sri Lanka.

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FEW JAFFNA PENINSULA-based pockets of Tiger (LTTE) terrorists as well as some terrorist operatives, sympathetic to their terror tactics, intending ostensibly to disrupt civil administration and normalcy in and around Jaffna town, are reportedly engaged in a vicious cycle of continuous threats against state officials/employees in the past few days, holding many of them to ransom, Security Forces and Police personnel serving the peninsula have been told.

Many perpetrators of those acts of harassment and intimidation, in some instances, were identifying themselves to be self-claimed members of the Security Forces or the Police, with the sinister motive of tarnishing the image of the Security Forces/Police in the peninsula who are maintaining good relations with members of the public.

The public in Jaffna, particularly in the wake of this new LTTE modus operandi are therefore urged to be aware of those LTTE terror tactics and immediately keep the nearest law enforcement authority informed of any such criminal attempt or threat. Confidentiality of such information given by affected civilians is assured by law enforcement authorities.

This new threatening practice of demanding ransom from state officials in Jaffna reasserts the fact that Tiger terrorists, now being ejected from elsewhere appear to be hell-bent on creating unrest in other Tamil dominated areas with the intention of refilling their coffers through extortions and ransoms.

(www.army.lk)

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India woke up to hear last week that KP had been arrested in Thailand. Indians read newspapers to find out that KP — actually Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingham aka Kumaran Pathmanathan — was a key LTTE leader in charge of weapons smuggling and believed to be living in Thailand and Cambodia, although otherwise, a naturalised Eritrean citizen. We were told he was on the list of Interpol’s most-wanted terrorists, sought for his participation in terrorism and the murder of Rajiv Gandhi.

It was fortuitous that the entire Interpol brass happened to be in New Delhi at the time, attending a conference. “KP? We still have to figure out if it is KP,” said CBI Director Vijay Shankar, who was attending the conference as India’s representative. Excessive caution? Certainly, but then intelligence has never been India’s strong point in its dealings with the LTTE. Deputy Chief of Thailand’s Special Branch police, Maj-Gen Trithot Ronnaritwichai, also denied that Padmanathan, better known as KP, had been arrested. “I have checked with all divisions concerned. Nobody has information about arresting any Sri Lankan man,” he said. True, but then KP is not Sri Lankan. Finally, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee clarified that the arrested person was not KP.

There are two things that stand out about the whole incident: One, that the arrested person was of Tamil origin, living in Thailand; second, that he was caught when he was buying weapons from a Thai national. Why did authorities think he was KP? Because of a newspaper report. India has been after KP for a long time and if it were indeed him, it would be taking no chances at letting him slip through the dragnet.

Why is KP so important? Widely known as the LTTE’s ‘Finance Minister’, he was in India when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the LTTE. The report of the Jain Commission has been lambasted for shoddy research, so that may or may not be considered an authoritative account of the circumstances in which the conspiracy to kill the former Prime Minister was launched. But in 1998, a Senate select sub-committee, headed by Senator John Kiri, indicated transfer of large amounts of funds from the accounts of an international arms dealer to those held by persons close to the LTTE during 1990-91.

The transactions were made through the now-defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) around the same period in which Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. A book, with a foreword by former CBI Director Vijay Karan who supervised the Special Investigation Team’s probe into Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, also carries several secret documents on the LTTE and threat perceptions on the late Prime Minister from the Intelligence Bureau. One of the notes speaks of a coded message, dated 10 months before Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, received from Kuala Lumpur from one K Padmanathan alias KP to LTTE chief V Prabhakaran. In the note, IB identified KP as “the person in charge of raising funds (for LTTE) abroad and also in charge of their hawala transactions”.

KP’s name also figured in the transfer of the parts of the Czech-built Zlin aircraft, which has haunted Sri Lanka. So, it is not hard to understand why India’s security agencies were so edgy as to believe a newspaper report that the arrested person was KP. There is another background to it. Most people don’t realise this, but LTTE has been active in Thailand for two decades and has used that country to acquire weapons, training of its cadre and a transit country for weapons smuggling. It has established several front companies and has a broad net of contacts in shipping, military, police and arms dealers. The front companies include shipping companies, trading firms, restaurants and hotels.

In January 2000, Thai Police seized a trawler near Ranong, carrying Carl Gustav rocket launchers. The incident, which was hushed up, involved a link-up among the LTTE, anti-Yangon Karen guerrillas and the Arakan Liberation Party. Thereafter, Thai newspapers reported that three LTTE operatives were arrested in the Ranong province in Thailand on May 12, 2003, with 10 Glock pistols and three HK Mark 23 pistols. They pleaded guilty and received a five year jail sentence in November 2003. Following this, 14 Thais were arrested, including eight police and military officers. Former Thai Army Chief Gen Surayudh Chulanont was so fed up that he complained to Thailand newspapers that the Tigers were running front companies in that country as smokescreens for arms purchases.

If more evidence is needed of LTTE activities in Thailand, there is the report in the local newspapers about an individual, a Norwegian citizen, Christy Reginold Lawrence, who was arrested on April 9, 2000, by Phuket Marine Police. He was driving his 17-metre long speedboat loaded with food and petrol heading for international waters. When the police accompanied him to his shipyard, they found a half-built mini-submarine. Maybe this is a fanciful and exaggerated description, but its hull was 3.6 metre and the tail, which had a rudder and was designed to hold a propeller, was 1.6-metre long. Thai Police also discovered sophisticated sonar and GPS systems, satellite phones, combat training videos in Tamil, LTTE calendars and uniforms. Lawrence was released on bail put up by the Norwegian Government.

Look at a map. Where is Phuket and where is Mullaithivu, the heartland of the Tigers? Draw a straight line and one will find that the two towns are closer to each other than one thinks. This is why some years ago, Vice-Governor of Phuket province Manit Nattanasaen said: “Phuket is just the channel for arms shipments and mostly the deals are done on the high seas. Now we are trying to find a more aggressive strategy on the seas.”

There is plenty of drugs and money floating around in neighbouring Myanmar. And the weapons have surfaced that went underground after insurgencies in South-East Asia, especially Cambodia, were dismantled. Thailand and Cambodia are the second most important arms markets after Afghanistan and African nations like Sierra Leone.

KP slipped the Indian dragnet when the conspiracy to kill Rajiv Gandhi was uncovered. He has a bounty of $ 500,000 on his head and both India and Sri Lanka want him. It will be a sad day for both countries if, after he is released, India and Sri Lanka discover that the man was indeed KP and that he has escaped yet again.

Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse has consistently asked India to play a more proactive role in resolving the ethnic conflict. This is where a beginning could be made — cooperation in counter-terrorism. The Rajapakse regime continues its flight of fancy in seeking a military solution. India must disabuse Colombo of using this tried option, while actively pursuing avenues towards a dignified power-sharing arrangement in the tortured tear-shaped island.

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Landmine-detecting bees

Training the bees

A man from Kandy is claiming that he could train bees to detect landmines as done in Croatia where bees are being used to detect hundreds of landmines buried around the countryside.

Deeman Ananda is training honey bees, wasps and other varieties of bees with the hope of detecting landmines in Sri Lanka. He now trains these bees outside his home to come at specified times and also to live with him in an open space. The bees hang around on his body as well.

Mr. Ananda is no scientist, but he feels he could train these bees to detect landmines provided the ‘scenting ‘ material is given to him. Police officials who visited him on his invitation, is said to have promised to supply him with samples of chemical material that is used in landmines.

He has been training these bees for the past one and half years.

Although not a hundred percent proven method, a professor at the Zagreb University in Croatia started the method with the intention of introducing a way to detect thousands of undetected landmines in his country, according to a BBC report. The bees are kept in an enclosure with several points and in one point with food and chemicals found in explosives smeared around it.

Professor Nikola Kezic’s idea is that the keen sense of smell in bees soon associates the smell of explosives with food.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/19/front/06.asp)

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Human rights activists insisted that the United Nations presence in Sri Lanka to stop abuses became a necessity due to the inaction by authorities since the country’s peace process broke down last year.

The government however dismissed NGO allegations that the country was facing a human rights crisis that required a monitoring mission from the United Nations.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other groups said a U.N. human rights field office could act as a neutral body to record and look into complaints of kidnappings, disappearances and other abuses in the civil war.

“The national mechanism doesn’t work,” Sunila Abeysekera, executive director of the Sri Lankan rights group INFORM, told a Geneva news conference.

Decrying a “culture of impunity” in Sri Lanka, where about 70,000 people have been killed since 1983, Ms. Abeysekera said it was impossible to report a human rights abuse to the

police or other authorities without fearing for one’s safety.

“We desperately need some outside mechanism that has the agreement of all parties,” she said, adding that the government and the LTTE would need to accept the presence of such an office for it to work well.

Charu Hogg, a Human Rights Watch researcher said it was now difficult to find information about abuses, especially in conflict-torn areas where access was impossible.

She estimated there were more than 550 extra-judicial executions in the north and east of Sri Lanka, and more than 350 disappearances, between January and June this year. “There is no report on how many people who disappeared are dead or alive. There is no clarity about the perpetrators,” said Hogg.

UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour is due to visit Sri Lanka next month and activists will seek meetings with her on the idea of a U.N. presence similar to the field operation that exists in Nepal, Ms. Abeysekera said.

Responding to statements made by the panel Ms. Shirani Goonatilleke, Director Legal of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) said it was unfortunate the government was only given seven minutes to respond to the panelists.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/19/news/11.asp)

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The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) demanded in Parliament yesterday that an Independent Committee comprising of three retired judges from the higher judiciary be appointed to investigate the killing of civilians during the military operations in the East.

TNA leader R.Sampanthan who moved in an adjournment motion with regard to the matter, told the House that around 300 innocent Tamil civilians had been killed in aerial bombardments, multi-barrel and rocket launcher firing during the military confrontations. Mr.Sampanthan was responding to Non-Cabinet Minister of Nation Building Susantha Punchinilame who said in a previous debate that no such civilian had been reported to have been killed in the fighting with the LTTE.

The TNA leader said that the proposed Independent Committee to look into this issue should comprise three retired judges representing the Sinhala, Tamil and the Muslim communities each.

He said that the truth should be ascertained and made known to people through impartial and independent inquiries. “The chairmanship of this committee should be given to someone representing Muslims because they are also a vital stakeholder of this problem,” he said.

The TNA also cited several incidents where a number of Tamils had died in air strikes, and tabled a document containing the names, ages and addresses of some persons so killed. Meanwhile, Minister Punchinilame reiterated that no complaint had been received that those civilians were killed due to multi- barrel and rocket launcher firing by the security forces.The Minister said that even the Batticaloa Government Agent had confirmed what he had said on the matter.

“In a war situation, the military and the LTTE fire each other using multi-barrel and artillery guns and rocket launchers. If there are people in between, they might get killed. How can we single out anyone as responsible for it?” he asked. He said that thousands of displaced persons had been resettled in the East, but the TNA did not utter a word about them.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/19/news/04.asp)

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With the Karuna faction continuing to discourage support for other Tamil parties in the east, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa have virtually decided to crackdown on the armed outfit to ensure that normalcy prevails.

The assurance to deal with the Karuna faction came at the National Security Council meeting on Monday when EPDP leader and Minister Douglas Devananda insisted on the need to crackdown on Karuna following attacks on his political members in the east.

“The President and the Defence Secretary assured to deal with the Karuna outfit. The Karuna faction continues to intimidate and attack EPDP members in the east,” Minister Devananda told the Daily Mirror.

The EPDP blamed the Karuna faction for the killing of one of its members in Valaichchenai last week and according to Minister Devananda a similar attempt was made on EPDP political activists in the east over the weekend.

When contacted by the Daily Mirror a Karuna official said he could not comment on the latest developments following the governmentSecurity Council meeting as they had to wait for a word from Karuna Amman.

Posters sprung up in Batticaloa recently warning civilians against showing any support to Tamil political parties other than the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP). The posters, put up by a group calling itself the ‘Sennen Padai’, points out specifically against supporting the TNA, PLOTE, TULF and EPDP – four political parties planning to contest future polls in the east.

Although the TMVP denies any links with the posters, speculation is rife that the outfit led by Karuna Amman, which has a strong armed presence in the district, is attempting to forcibly discourage support for other political parties.

A few weeks back the police captured a person with C-4 explosives in the east who had confessed he had obtained the explosives from the TMVP, thus raising fears some TMVP elements might attempt to carry out explosions in the east and blame them on the LTTE.

Also last month Batticaloa was tense as the funeral of the slain Pillayan associate Murali was set to take place in Kalawanchikudi amidst fears the internal feud of the TMVP could fuel further as a result of the killing. The police Special Task Force was placed on high alert fearing clashes between cadres loyal to Karuna Amman and Pillayan during the funeral of Murali, who was a former top close associate of Pillayan as well as a relative of Markan who is also an ally of Pillayan.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/19/front/03.asp)

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A decade ago, a ship loaded with tens of thousands of mortar bombs left the shores of Mozambique, dropped anchor at Madagascar and vanished. Weeks later, a fax machine at the US embassy in Colombo spat out a piece of paper that announced the vessel had been hijacked, raising alarm and concerns over Sri Lanka’s ability to successfully complete a military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

It is now widely believed the cargo meant for the Sri Lankan government was actually loaded on an LTTE-owned vessel — one of many run by a shadowy man called Kumaran Padmanathan, or Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingam, or Sadasivam Padmanathan, or Periya Dorai, or Kanakapillai, or simply KP as the man with a handful of aliases is known to the world.

The ship landed the mortar bombs off LTTE-held territory in northern Sri Lanka and soon after, the guerrillas rained them on the military, wresting control of the battle for a highway that connects Jaffna to the island’s south. Nearly 10 years later, most of that highway is still under LTTE control.

KP, widely known as the chief arms buyer for the LTTE for decades after setting up a successful smuggling operation in the 1980s, was reported by Sri Lanka’s authorities to have been arrested in Thailand on Monday, raising hopes that the dreaded organisation could now be made to crumble. By Tuesday, the euphoria seemed to be eroding a bit after Thai officials announced they knew nothing about the Sri Lankan claims and India, which has a strong interest in the man due to his role in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, saying it was trying to confirm he had indeed been arrested.

“I’ve checked with related police bureaux — the Immigration Police, Metropolitan Police and Special Branch. There has been no report of a Tiger rebel arrested in Bangkok,” Thailand’s national police spokesman Lieutenant-General Ronnarong Youngyuen said. “If we’d arrested him, we would have made good publicity out of it,” he told Reuters.

The CBI said it was waiting to hear from the Thais. “We have learnt about the reported detention and have requested the government of Thailand through diplomatic channels to confirm the same. We have also contacted Interpol Bangkok. We haven’t got any response till now,” CBI Director Vijay Shanker told reporters on the sidelines of an Interpol Conference on cyber crime in New Delhi.

In Colombo, officials said they believed KP was under detention. A top official, who did not want to be named, said that KP was under heavy surveillance, a term security experts interpreted as a euphemism for sustained and intense questioning.

KP has several aliases and has worn many hats in his efforts to keep the arms pipeline open to the LTTE and bankrolling it — those of a businessman, arms dealer, smuggler and master forger with access to several bank accounts across the world. Sometimes known as an immigration officer’s worst nightmare because of the number of passports he is reported to juggle, KP has stayed ahead of intelligence agencies following him across the world — successfully managing the vast, multinational business empire built by the LTTE.

From high-end explosives like RDX, which the LTTE used to blow up the Central Bank building in 1996 and then the twin tower World Trade Centre in Colombo the next year, and surface-to-air missiles that brought down Sri Lanka Air Force aircraft, every and anything the LTTE needed was bought by KP.

He is reported to have been seen in different places, including Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Cambodia, striking deals with rebels and arms suppliers to ship weapons, explosives and dual-use technologies to help the LTTE keep fighting its war for an independent homeland. Arms bought in Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam are said to loaded on to LTTE ships from southern Thailand, which take them to the group’s jungle stronghold in Sri Lanka. Malaysia and Singapore both have sizeable Tamil populations.

Some reports suggest KP is related to Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE supreme who lives in the jungles of the Wanni in northern Sri Lanka. He is reported to have set up several front companies across Southeast Asia to funnel money and arms to the group and also taken Thai citizenship. After Prabhakaran, he is the second most wanted man in Sri Lanka.

(http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=fd672d33-59a3-4e89-9a74-375b6ac3b707)

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The UNP yesterday told Parliament that the government had made a mess of the plan to get LTTE arms procurement chief Kumaran Padmanathan alias KP arrested in Thailand recently and deported to Sri Lanka.

UNP Parliamentarian John Amaratunga said by trying to capitalize on the arrest for the sake of cheap publicity the government lost a ‘wonderful opportunity’ of getting vital information regarding LTTE financial sources and arms dealings.

“The arrest was given undue publicity. The government tried to capitalize on it but made a mess of things. The Thai government was upset that Sri Lanka did not maintain confidentiality on the move,” he said.

Mr. Amaratunga said a high level government team that visited India recently had also caused much embarrassment to the country by wrongfully saying that India and Sri Lanka had entered into a defence agreement.

“The government was forced to make an apology. The Indian External Affairs Ministry was furious that the statement implied that India backed a military solution by the Rajapaksa regime”, he said.

“What is our image in the eyes of these countries? The Defence Ministry is trying to make false statements to mislead the people and the international community,” he said.

The parliamentarian also said the US senate had turned against the government and refused to provide the country with any defence equipment, services or training.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/09/19/front/02.asp)

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