NEW DELHI: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s remarks that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam planned to attack Colombo with a plane flying out of Chennai, India in 2009, should be seen in the context of UN investigation of human rights abuse by the army during the war against the LTTE, which ended in May that year with the killing of its leader V. Prabhakaran.
In his address to the UN General Assembly Thursday, Siresena, who was acting defence minister during the last phase of the war, said that most leaders had fled the country in view of reports of a possible air raid by the cornered LTTE. “No one knew it better than me. The Tamil Tigers were going to operate an aircraft from Chennai or some other jungle area to bomb and destroy targets in Colombo,” Sirisena said.
“I was the acting defence minister. All the others had fled because they feared air attacks. Even I did not stay in Colombo. I was at several locations outside Colombo in case the Tigers attacked the capital city.”
In Feb 2009, the LTTE did attempt a suicide air raid on Colombo with two aircraft which took off from a road in rebel-held territory of Mullaithivu District.
While one was shot as it was circling over Colombo harbour, and crashed into high rise killing two and injuring 50, the other was shot down while trying to escape the anti-aircraft barrage near Bandaranaike International Airport. After the LTTE was crushed in a massive military operation later that year, international organizations including the UN, raised concerns over atrocities committed by the Army.
In a press conference at UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva earlier this week, senior members of the World Sri Lankan Association said, “The three-decade-long battle between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE, one of the most brutal terrorist organisations that the world has ever seen, came to an end on 19 May 2009. Immediately thereafter, a number of Western countries, sympathetic to the LTTE’s cause for reasons known only to them, began a campaign against Sri Lanka.”
After several attempts to take action against Sri Lanka, UNHRC requested the High Commissioner to undertake a comprehensive investigation into ‘serious violations of human rights and related crimes’ allegedly committed between February 2002 and November 2011, in Sri Lanka, a member said.
“Siresena’s reference to the attack by the LTTE in his UNGA speech is obviously aimed at reminding the world that it was a terrorist outfit,” said an Indian official. “Domestically, there is growing perception that the UN had equated the atrocities of the LTTE, a terrorist outfit, with the Sri Lankan Army,” he said.
In his speech Thursday, Siresena stressed that his country was an independent sovereign state. “To continue the process of reconciliation, we don’t want any foreign power to influence us. As Sri Lankans, we will find solutions to our problems, we simply need room to resolve them and the UN support,” he said.