Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva in Parliament yesterday described the allegations of "state terror" and "genocide" as 'mere justifications for LTTE terrorism.' He was responding to a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentary Group statement issued following the April 25 attack on the Army Commander, which stated that "it was a direct consequence of the State terror that has been unleashed against the Tamil civilian population of the Northeast".
Head of the government delegation to the Peace Process Minister de Silva urged the TNA parliamentarians to try and influence the LTTE back to the negotiating table and not to use such justifications at a time the whole civilized world totally denounced terrorism. Quoting the UN Secretary General he said, "Terrorists must never be allowed to create a pretext for their actions. Whatever the causes they claim to be advancing, whatever grievances they claim to be responding to, terrorism cannot be justified".
The Minister told the House that the silence maintained by the TNA parliamentarians in the face of tactics employed by the LTTE of using civilians as human shields and attacking the security forces in civilian populated areas was unbecoming.
He further said the silence was a total betrayal of the trust the Tamil people had bestowed on the TNA parliamentarians since it placed civilians in an extremely vulnerable and dangerous situation.
Ethnic backlash
Minister de Silva further said the Government was deeply concerned at the attempt by the LTTE to provoke an ethnic backlash by attacking Sinhala civilians. He cited the cycle bomb in Trincomalee and the attack on six Sinhala farmers working their fields as examples.
"It is indeed to the credit of the security forces that the mob violence that followed both these incidents were quickly brought under control and not allowed to spread to other areas".
Civilian killings
Minister de Silva said the President had instructed him to inform Parliament that the Government vehemently condemns the recent spate of killings of civilians in Jaffna, Vavuniya and Avissawella and take all necessary action to punish the perpetrators.
"As a democracy and a mature society we will not tolerate this any longer. We urge the police and the security forces to perform their duty to the country by maintaining law and order and in protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country", he said.
Peace process
The leader of the government delegation said the Government was taking all measures necessary to create the condition for the restarting of the Geneva talks and urged the LTTE to cease all attacks on security forces as well as the civilians and to respond positively to the flexibility demonstrated by the Government in providing transportation facilities to the LTTE to enable it to have its internal consultations.
Minister de Silva once again urged the TNA parliamentarians to exert whatever influence they have to bring the LTTE to the negotiating table saying, "this is what Tamil people want. This is what all peace-loving peoples of this country want".