'UNP allowed parallel armies at same time'

by Shirajiv SRIMANE

The President, government and the Security Forces were committed to end the war and bringing about a permanent solution to the 26-year-old conflict but the Opposition headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe was hell-bent on disrupting this smooth flow to peace.

The Opposition both locally and internationally made accusation after accusation trying in vain to sabotage this process leading to peace. Here are some comments made by the Opposition in undermining the efforts of the Security Forces and the Government.

Ranil in another secret pact with Prabhakaran JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe in an interview to Lankaweb.com before the Presidential Election allege Ranil has entered into another secret pact with Prabhakaran to obtain votes Question: Ranil Wickremesinghe's People's Agenda Manifesto speaks about a balanced de-militarization of the Sri Lanka Army? What are your observations on that? Answer: When you speak about balancing essentially there should be two sides. In the so-called ceasefire agreement Ranil Wickremesinghe accepted two sides. They are the Government of Sri Lanka governed areas and the LTTE governed areas. The demarcated area for the LTTE has an army parallel with the legitimate armed forces of the Government of Sri Lanka. This was something no other UNP President dared to allow officially, at any time before Ranil Wickremesinghe.

After doing that Ranil Wickremesinghe's Government tied the hands of the Sri Lanka Army. They cannot go to the LTTE controlled areas while LTTE soldiers could travel in the GOSL controlled areas in the guise of doing propaganda work. They have brought arms and explosives to these areas on numerous occasions. The whole country knows how Ranil Wickremesinghe purposely destroyed the Millennium City intelligence unit of the Sri Lanka Army by falsely alleging them as assassins preparing to kill Wickremesinghe and revealing the names of the officers in the UNP controlled press. An army with a fully devastated intelligence unit is like a fighting man without a head. Meanwhile he allowed the intelligence unit of the LTTE forces to expand limitlessly.

It spread its net all over the country. They have even recruited pro-UNP journalists in their intelligence activities. In the Muthaliff assassination it was revealed that that one of the suspects was working for the UNP media unit. In short under the ceasefire agreement Ranil Wickremesinghe balanced the armed forces in favour of the LTTE.

Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thoppigala July 17, 2007 comment from Ranil Wickremesinghe and his party spokespersons are quite worried these days about the way in which Toppigala operation was carried out by the Security Forces. Wickramasinghe's initial position is capturing Thoppigala is useless exercise as it is worthy only for collectors of firewood. Ranil Wickremesinghe and his associate Lakshman Kiriella, MP for Kandy, came up with another criticism about Thoppigala operation.

They alleged that the Security Forces allow the LTTE leaders including Ramesh and its cadres to escape from Thoppigala with all military hardware that includes multi-barrel rocket launchers. Wickeremesinghe told the press that this order that the LTTE leaders and cadres should be allowed to escape through arranged route came from Colombo, allegedly from the political leadership of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government

UNP asserted that the LTTE wouldn't succumb to military pressure and President Rajapaksa, too, would end up a casualty. The UNP's assertion was reflected by MP Ravi Karunanayake's damaging statement in Parliament. As the Army battled the LTTE outside Killinochchi, the outspoken MP said that the Government meant Medawachchiya when it talked of taking Killinochchi. Similarly it meant Pamankada when it mentioned Ali Mankada.