SLMM strongly condemns
attack on Navy vessel saying cannot rule out LTTE involvement
[March 27, 2006 - 9.00 GMT]
The Sri Lankan
Monitoring Mission (SLMM) has strongly condemned the attack on the Sri
Lanka Navy vessel with a crew of 19. While 11 of the crew were rescued
eight still remain missing. Search operations are still in progress.
An LTTE craft,
disguised as a multi – day fishing trawler heavily laden with explosives
and war-like materials blew itself up, destroying a Naval craft around
midday on Saturday 25th March. There had been six LTTE cadres
onboard the trawler.
According to the
Navy website the Navy had received reliable information that some
trawlers under Sinhala names had been transporting war-like materials
from a ship in the high seas off down south. The Navy then launched a
special operation with Naval crafts to track down the trawlers
transporting the weapons.
In a statement the
SLMM says, “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have denied any
involvement. However, based on SLMM’s previous experience during the
period of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) we feel that we cannot at this
stage rule out their involvement. The SLMM would like to urge the LTTE
to extend their full cooperation to both the Sri Lankan Government and
the SLMM on this matter in the hope that we can establish how this
attack came about and how such incidents can be avoided in the future.
“There has been a
dangerous escalation of violence taking place over the last couple of
weeks. This trend is extremely worrying as the parties prepare
themselves to meet in Geneva for a second round of talks in four weeks
time.”
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Last Updated
Date: March 27, 2006 -9.00 GMT |
