Azwer throws a challenge to Wigneswaran

A.H.M. Azwer moving an adjournment motion in parliament recently asked the Northern Province Chief Minister C.V.Wigneswaran to seek the assistance of a special commission of inquiry from the UN Human Rights Council to probe into atrocities committed by the LTTE against Muslims and other communities.

He moved the motion requesting President Mahinda Rajapaksa to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate into human rights violations committed by the LTTE and take appropriate action against the perpetrators.

It highlighted the ethnic cleansing of Jaffna by driving away 72,000 Muslims and the massacre of Muslim devotees in a mosque in Kattankudi in the Eastern province as well as the eviction of 10,000 Sinhalese and the Kebethigollewa massacre.

"The LTTE had murdered so many leaders, starting from Alfred Duraiappah, the first SLFP Mayor of Jaffna. Then they devastated the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi, the sacred Bo-tree of Buddhists, and they almost destroyed the Dalada Maligawa.

They butchered and massacred the young Buddhist monks."

He said if Vigneswaran is to justify his position as a former judge, he should in the same breath ask UN HRC to appoint a special commission of inquiry to look into LTTE atrocities committed in Jaffna and elsewhere.

He said when the Muslims were evicted from the North, he was the Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs and had to rush to Puttalam and other places to resettle the evicted families.

"The Sinhalese people, in these areas took them in and protected them.

That was the real truth," Azwer told the House.

The MP questioning the validity of claims during the final phase of the humanitarian operation was a 'war without witness', said there were 300,000 witnesses, held by LTTE as a human shield to protect their leaders and who were later rescued by the Government forces.