“I see the convincing victory by the United People’s Liberation Front (UPFA) at the elections to the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provincial Councils held yesterday (23 August ) as a victory for all our people who love our motherland. It is an election where the country has won,” states President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a message on the results of the elections to the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces held yesterday.The United People’s Liberation Front (UPFA) won a clear majority of seats in both Provincial Councils.

Given below is the text of a letter sent to the Sunday Leader by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary-General, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, in response to an article that appeared on August 17^th. Sections of the letter were reproduced in another article in the Sunday Leader on August 24^th, but the full letter makes clear a point the article avoids, namely the commitment of the police and the Sri Lankan state to affirm the rule of law and deal firmly with breaches of the peace arising from religious prejudice.

It was in particular unfortunate that the Sunday Leader did not publish the sections of the letter which made clear the selective way in which the original article had dealt with evidence. The new article suggested that we were merely responding to complaints from others, but this is also misleading. The questions had already been gone into at the time the American ambassador raised them, in his usual positive spirit, which is why we could respond to him so promptly.  

Conversely, since the British High Commission had raised similar questions some months back, we have kept the High Commissioner informed of the situation, but have had no response to a couple of letters. This, we hope, indicates that he is aware that the police are taking prompt action, and therefore he does not need to draw attention to any particular incident. Needless to say, it is important that any breach of the peace is brought to government attention, and failure to act should also be highlighted. But it would be more useful if this were done objectively, and to convey information, as the envoys have done, rather than in a spirit of fault finding that does not always adhere to fact.

“The people in Kilinochchi have already lost their own children and relatives because of the LTTE. The only hope that they have at present is the strong belief that the Security Forces will arrive in Kilinochchi soon, and rescue them from the grip of the LTTE.” 

( Mannar, Sri Lanka Guardian)

Commander of Task Force 1, Brigadier Shavendra Silva speaking to Sri Lanka Guardian said, “leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, V. Prabhakaran, has made the Tamil population prisoners in his fantasy Eelam regime. These people have sacrificed their children, property, wealth and labour for this illusionary Eelam regime”.
Our staff correspondent B. Veeman interviews Brigadier Shavendra at the War front during his visit few days ago. “Many of the soldiers are very cooperative when dealing with the people. They offer the people every possible support. Most of the time, the mistrust occurs due to the language problem and consequent communication gap,” he points out.

Here is the full text of the interview;

by B. Veeman