Gota refutes Ranil’s claims

Denies ‘white flag’ to save Puleethevan’s life as return favour:

by Manjula Fernando

Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa denied his government organized the controversial ‘white flag’ scene to save head of the LTTE peace Secretariat at the time, S.Puleethevan, during the final stages of the Eelam War IV.

Responding to allegations by the government that the Rajapaksa administration made special allowances to secure Puleethevan’s life, He said, “We did not have any contact with Puleethevan,” and added that people who make those claims contradict themselves by alleging that government forces killed Puleethevan.

“Not just Puleethevan, even Prabhakaran, would have been rescued and rehabilitated had they come out,” he said. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe making a special statement in Parliament recently said Colombo’s intervention in the matter of a group of LTTE leaders and their families bearing symbolic white flags ready to surrender had put the country and the government forces on the hook, earning serious war crimes charges.

Wickremesinghe also said Puleethevan had struck a deal with the Rajapaksas to influence the 2005 Presidential Election in their favour and the effort to save him during the final battles was an act of reciprocity.

The former Defence Secretary also denied the claim that the assassination of former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in August 2005 was a contract killing by the LTTE.

“It was not a contract. The LTTE did kill him,” Rajapaksa said, adding that it was he who investigated the killing and found who was responsible. “The then government was clueless as to what happened.”