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Lanka asks LTTE to lay down arms for safe exit of civilians
Buoyed by string of recent military success against the LTTE as the Army has pushed them from nearly all their strongholds, Sri Lanka has once again asked the beleaguered rebels to surrender to facilitate the safe exit of Tamil civilians. "They (LTTE) must lay down arms so that there is no need for us (to launch attacks on them). You can then have an open highway in terms of getting the civilians out of the clutches of the LTTE," Foreign Minister Bogollagama told reporters.
Buoyed by string of recent military success against the LTTE as the Army has pushed them from nearly all their strongholds, Sri Lanka has once again asked the beleaguered rebels to surrender to facilitate the safe exit of Tamil civilians.
Sri Lanka has appreciated the stand of world community including the UN for asking the LTTE to lay down arms.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has said laying down of arms by the Tiger rebels will enable the government to open highways to bring in the distraught Tamil civilians into the government held areas.
"They (LTTE) must lay down arms so that there is no need for us (to launch attacks on them). You can then have an open highway in terms of getting the civilians out of the clutches of the LTTE," Bogollagama told reporters.
"This is what we have been telling the international community and the international community's call has now come on the LTTE to lay down arms.
"We want to see to ask LTTE to lay down arms and free the citizens. It is against the humanitarian laws," he said
The UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Sir John Holmes during his recent visit to Sri Lanka had echoed similar views, Bogollagama said, "what LTTE is doing is a total violation of International Humanitarian law."
The Minister said visit of Holmes has benefited Sri Lanka "heavily because we were able to get the UN to speak in terms of what they saw in the country and that will be shared with the distinguished member states of the Security Council."
At the same time some members states have spoken well in terms of the need for us to maintain the level that we are now registered in addressing the humanitarian issues and also calling on the LTTE to lay down arms and surrender without prolonging the agony to our Tamil community in Sri Lanka, Bogollagama said.
"This is the major step that we have achieved and we must be grateful for the UN system and also to the members of the Security council who have had the opportunity to discuss the matter though not on the agenda, as an informal discussion," he added.
Human corridors have been opened by us almost every day in order to see that the civilians would come, he said.
"Because we were able to maintain that response in terms of human corridors that we were able to register over 32,000 IDPs coming from the LTTE areas during the last month through the government controlled areas," Bogollagama said.
