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“Adopt multi-pronged strategy against terrorism”

COLOMBO: The Sri Lanka military announced on Tuesday that three civilians of Thambarawava village in the south of the country were hacked to death by unknown assailants on Monday night and their bodies were found by the villagers the next morning.

A statement by the Media Centre for National Security said here that another civilian in the same area was seriously injured in a possible anti-personnel mine explosion.

Incidentally, a few days ago, the government suspended the license of a radio network in the island nation on charges of broadcasting false news of the cadres of the LTTE entering Thissamaharamaya and killing some villagers. The network, which claims to have put out a correction within five minutes of broadcast of the news item, has appealed against the government decision in the Supreme Court and the petition is pending disposal.

Separately, the military in a statement said that Army Chief Sarath Fonseka, during his recent visit to the U.S., met a “galaxy” of U.S. statesmen and military leaders. The statement said in a presentation to the senior U.S. military officers on “counter-terrorist operations” he touched upon a wide variety of subjects such as forms of terrorism, nature of terrorism and counter terrorism and challenges.

Differentiating between terrorism and insurgency, Lt. Gen. Fonseka told the gathering that the magnitude of terrorists’ military campaign, the level of threat against law and order, the level of military counter-attack, political motives and the involvement of public support are factors to be reckoned with before any counter-operations are planned against terrorism, the statement said.

He told his audience that the “Tamil terrorist organisation” in Sri Lanka claims that a certain part of the country belongs to the Tamil people whose origins are from Tamil Nadu in India where 50 million Tamils live.

“Another 50 million of Indian Tamils live in other countries, all over the world. About 2 million Tamils live in my country but half of them live abroad and other parts of the country. One million people claim a separate state in 1/3 of the country covering 2/3 of the coastal belt. Every militant group demanding a separate state cannot be accepted as liberation fighters”, he said.

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