Time has come again for all of us to unite together and voice our concerns against attempts being made by LTTE rump and Tamil Diaspora at international level, in order to achieve what they could not reach through terrorism in the past, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said.
Heroic efforts of our War Heroes are belittled and insulted by those interested parties, by projecting our armed forces as members who have committed war crimes, according to whims and fancies of interested parties who influence the international community. As a nation who salvaged this country from scourge of terrorism, it is our duty now as patriots to rise to the occasion and defeat those international attempts, meant to bring discredit to the country,’ Secretary Gotabhaya said.
The Secretary was speaking at ‘Ranaviru Punyanumodana-2011 ceremony held yesterday to commemorate war heroes who laid down their lives for the freedom of the country.
‘Some of those elements are serving the agenda and requirements of the terrorist leader, Prabakaran while using the international community. Some run to western embassies for complaint before they report even to the Police when any incident occurs" the Sri Lanka Army website reported quoting Secretary Rajapaksa.Channel-4 video conveniently forgets to mention even the name of the terrorist leader, Prabakaran who cold-bloodedly butchered unarmed 600 Policemen, numbers of Buddhist monks, villagers, passengers, et al in the country. Nobody appears taking any interest in talking about how US operational troops in Pakistan shot and killed the wife of Bin Laden at first during their swoop’, he added.
Secretary Rajapaksa referring to the non-participation of certain western powers in the recent Army-organized seminar, ‘Defeating Terrorism - The Sri Lankan Experience,’ noted that had those countries genuinely wanted to learn how the Sri Lanka Army fought terrorism, they would have sent their representatives to the seminar, enabling the Army to respond to any queries or clarifications as they required. Some of them want to provide a lifeline for revival of terrorist aspirations, he added.
Paying a tribute to the organizers of the event, the Defence Secretary added that the memory of our War Heroes should always be kept in mind without forgetting them, and we, as a united nation, should strive and rise against allegations of the international community against our War Heroes, most of which have been largely influenced by pro-terrorist elements operating at international levels.