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“LTTE collapsing like a pack of cards”

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa has asserted that areas in Kilinochchi and Mullathivu, which are under the LTTE’s control, would be “liberated.”

Addressing an election rally in Anuradhapura on Saturday in support of the United People’s Freedom Alliance candidates contesting the North Western Provincial Council election, Mr. Rajapaksa said just as the East was liberated from the LTTE’s clutches, Kilinochchi and Mullathivu, too, would be would be liberated.

The ongoing fighting in the North was a “humanitarian mission” to reaffirm the right to life of all peoples — Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslims and others. Separately, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa claimed that in the face of military operations, the LTTE was collapsing like a pack of cards. “This is a very decisive juncture when the security forces have got the upper hand and need all the help they can get. The Tigers are in disarray. They are falling apart like a pack of cards and fleeing for safety, leaving behind heavy guns and artillery as never seen before,” he told a local paper in an interview.

The Defence Secretary said when he met TMVP leaders and asked them to have faith in the political process and to enter the democratic mainstream by contesting elections, they harboured doubts about such a possibility. “Today, they have realised what they could not achieve through the bullet they had achieved through the ballot.”

“Similarly, [I] request those LTTE cadres, who have either been misled by Prabhakaran or realised the folly of their resorting to terrorism, to surrender to the government even at this late stage,” he added.

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