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Monday, February 02, 2009 - 5.00 GMT |
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UN Secretary General welcomes President’s
announcement of safe passage for civilians |
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UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon in a
statement issued on January 30 welcomed
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s announcement
of safe passage to a secure environment for
civilians who are kept as a human shield by
the LTTE in the North.
The UN Secretary General has issued a strong
message to the LTTE to allow the civilians
in the conflict zone to move to areas
cleared by the Government, keeping in mind
the need to ensure the security and welfare
of the innocent civilians. Such calls by the
international community are timely, and will
hopefully persuade the LTTE to respond to
the humanitarian objective of releasing the
majority Tamil civilians trapped in the
uncleared areas.
The Government has taken several measures to
ensure the safety and security of the
civilians in the recent operations aimed at
clearing the remaining few areas of the
Mullaitivu district of LTTE activity. In
view of the fact that the LTTE is holding
the civilians by force as human shields, and
not allowing them to enter into the cleared
areas, the Government had demarcated a “safe
area”, and informed civilians to move into
the safe area. However, the LTTE had
violated the objective of the safe area by
moving mortar and heavy weapons into, this
area and firing from within the safe area
over civilians, thus causing civilian
casualties, and endangering their security.
It is against this background that President
Rajapaksa has announced the safe passage for
all civilians.
The government wishes to reiterate its
position that the military activities are
aimed solely at eradicating terrorism. The
Government has adhered to, and will continue
to adhere to a “zero civilian casualty”
policy in its effort to eradicate terrorism.
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