Rajiva Wijesinha

“ In short, this seems a classic instance of the LTTE using civilians as human shields though, unlike in other instances where government combats terror, on this occasion the Sri Lankan government did not know that it was civilians who would suffer from its radar directed attack. ”

“ Finally, your claim that an army attack that hit an IDP camp in November (2006) killed at least 50 people is a repetition of a point I have dealt with above, and is grossly unfair in a context in which it is the only incident, during the course of the military operations to retake the east, in which there were even allegations of civilian casualties. Again, your generalization about rape in the final paragraph ignores the fact that there were no allegations even of rape made against the army in the course of operations. ”

“ In the next paragraph you say that ‘political power became centralized around the presidency and Parliament played a secondary role’. This is inevitable given our constitution though, because of the narrow parliamentary majority of the government, Parliament is much more important than it was for most of the period since the new constitution was brought in. ”