Rajiva Wijesinha

“ When we see that in theory then there are no LTTE wounded amongst those we are now caring for, we can understand how preposterous it is to assume that there were no LTTE dead either. Except at the very end, when after we had managed to rescue almost all the civilians the hard core cadres fought and died, there were no accounts of LTTE dead in the propaganda that was churned out between January and April. ”

“ Certainly the number of civilian dead must be very much less, and amongst them those killed by collateral damage as opposed to the deliberate targeting of them by the LTTE as they tried to escape must be minimal. ”

“ Finally, it must be clear to any thinking person that a great number of those who died would be LTTE fighters. After all, when TamilNet propagated claims of civilian deaths, they never gave numbers of cadres who had died. ”

“ We are told that the UN claims that about 7,000 civilians have been killed in fighting between the Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE over the last few months. It is also claimed that 16,700 have been wounded, ‘according to a UN document given to the Associated Press by a senior diplomat’. ”

“ And yet, there are no LTTE combatants amongst the injured, not at least in any of the reports that are filed, the accusations that are made. All those injured, the more than 5,000 who were brought out by the ICRC, the rest who surrendered, are described as civilians. ”