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| Sunday, 24 October 2004 |
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Around Trinco harbour : No LTTE military build up -SLMM by Ranga Jayasuriya Ceasefire monitors in their latest report submitted to the Government this week have ruled out the reports of an existence of LTTE military build up around Trincomalee harbour. SLMM spokesman Oskar Solnes said the truce monitors had not found any indications of an LTTE military build up around the harbour and that all the LTTE installations the SLMM had visited during investigations were "well within the LTTE controlled area". Ceasefire monitors, however, could not visit three alleged LTTE installations built deep inside the jungle. "After visiting all but these three places, we did not see any 'military' presence of the LTTE in the area," he said. He said the three places which ceasefire monitors could not visit were alleged to have been located deep in the jungles. "Some civilians speak of the existence of these three installations in the jungle". "But given the distance between these installations and the security forces camps, we don't think that would have any impact on the security situation," he said. He said most of these places were small installations of few bunkers, and were checkpoints. The ceasefire monitors described these as LTTE installations. "Some of them are new and some are old. But all of them are well within the LTTE controlled areas," Solnes said. He said the only LTTE camp built in the Government controlled area was the Wan Ela (Manirasakulam) camp, which has been ruled a ceasefire violation by truce monitors. The SLMM earlier submitted two preliminary reports to the Government on its investigations into the alleged LTTE build up around the Eastern port city. The two preliminary reports had the same conclusion that ceasefire monitors did not find evidence of an LTTE military build up. An official of the Peace Secretariat said the report had been directed to the Defence Ministry for consideration. Earlier, Defence Secretary Cyril Herath ordered the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to inquire into the alleged LTTE build up around the Trinco harbour following intelligence reports in this regard. Intelligence reports warned that the Tigers were building up bases around the Trinco harbour and getting closer to their artillery range. |
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