Defence Sec: calls for SARRC intelligence cooperation [April 05 2011]

Defenec Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa called South Asian region to have a collective interest to enhance regional cooperation in law-enforcement and intelligence to ensure that the region’s development was not held hostage by common enemies – terrorists or other perpetrators of organized crimes.

Addressing the 9th SARRC conference on ‘Co-operation in Police matters’ short while ago Rajapaksa of all challenges the countries face, none had been more widespread and destructive than terrorism and the associated networks of crime that sustain it.

“ In Sri Lanka’s context, the human and economic costs of protracted terrorism have been enormous: and I would not be wrong to observe that other member-states too have suffered equal or perhaps even greater harm from terrorism. In this regard, it is vital that we realize how failure to act promptly, decisively and in concert against terrorism through the twin instruments of intelligence and law-enforcement, could eventually bring devastating results to all of us”, he said.

The Defence Secretary also said that most intense conflicts, if resolutely resolved, could create the peaceful and secure environment necessary to foster political freedom, social healing and economic development