''இலங்கை சிங்களவர்களுடையது'' என நான் கூறவில்லை- பொன்சேகா சொன்ன பெரும் பொய்!=====================================================
In the general's view, the war is driven by Tamils who want a homeland and have chosen Sri Lanka as the place. But he says the country's ethnic Sinhalese majority will never allow the ethnic Tamil minority to break the island apart.
Lt.-Gen. Fonseka is a competitive swimmer who won the U.S. Green Card lottery but has remained in Sri Lanka, heading the army he has served for three decades. He is lucky to be alive. On April 25, 2006, a suicide bomber attacked his limousine in Colombo. He was seriously injured in the assassination attempt and nine others were killed. The Tamil Tigers never claim responsibility for such attacks but were almost certainly behind it.
* "I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people," he says.
* "We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country.
* "We are also a strong nation ... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."
Stewart Bell, National Post ===============================================
''இலங்கை சிங்களவர்களுடையது'' என நான் கூறவில்லை- பொன்சேகா சொன்ன பெரும் பொய்!
கனடாவில் இருந்து வெளிவரும் National Post எனும் பத்திரிகை யுத்தம் மூர்க்கம் கொண்ட நாட்களில் தமது நிருபர் Stewart Bel ஐ இலங்கைக்கு அனுப்பி அவருடைய விசாரணை அறிக்கைகளை 6 பாகங்களாக வெளியிட்டது. அதன் 5வது பாகத்தில் சரத் பொன்சேகா இக் கருத்தை National Post நிருபர் Stewart Bel இற்கு தெரிவித்திருந்தார்.இதற்கான விபரங்களும் ஆதாரங்களும் இங்கே இணைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன. அந்தப் பேட்டியின் தொடர்ச்சியான போக்கு இந்தமுடிவை- ''இலங்கை சிங்களவர்களுடையது'' -நியாயப்படுத்துவதாகவே அமைந்துள்ளது.முன்னும் பின்னும் இதை நியாயப் படுத்தும் வாதங்களை சரத் முன்வைக்கின்றார்.கேவலம் தான் வெளியிட்ட கருத்துக்கு பொறுப்பேற்க மறுக்கிற மனிதரிடம் வேறு எந்தத்துறையில் நீதியை மக்கள் எதிபார்க்கமுடியும்?
===============================================================
இணைப்பு
National போஸ்ட் > http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=832374
Inside Sri Lanka: A life given over to war
Part 5 of our investigative series
Stewart Bell, National Post
Published: Tuesday, September 23, 2008
More On This Story
Inside Sri Lanka Part 1: An 'island of blood'
Inside Sri Lanka Part 2: 'There is no freedom' in Jaffna
Inside Sri Lanka Part 3: Your cash going to arms, say ex-rebels
Inside Sri Lanka Part 4: Worship in war
===============
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Stewart Bell, National Post > sbell@nationalpost.com
====================
Stewart Bell/National PostHundreds of thousands have fled Sri Lanka's civil war, many of them to Canada. While the war zone has been off limits to journalists, the National Post's Stewart Bell recently toured the front lines just as the conflict appears headed for a decisive showdown. This is the fifth of a six-part series.WELIOYA, Sri Lanka -- Brigadier Mohan K. Jayawardena is sitting at his wooden desk, a framed portrait of the President on the wall behind him, when a loud boom rattles his office.
He does not flinch.
He is apparently used to the sound of 130-mm artillery guns firing off into the Mullattivu jungle, home of the Tamil Tigers guerrillas he has battled his entire military career.
Brig. Jayawardena was an 18-year-old in basic training when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam started fighting for independence for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority.
Twenty-eight years later, he is still fighting Tigers, now as the Area Commander for Welioya, a northern district that is experiencing some of the most intense fighting of the civil war.
The Sri Lankan conflict is one of the world's longest-running insurgencies. A whole generation has never lived in times of peace. Newspaper articles about the latest bombings no longer even make the front pages of the country's dailies.
"We have to somehow or other sort out this problem," says the general, who has slicked-down black hair, a moustache and three rows of ribbons on his uniform. "That is our aim. We want to finish it altogether." The army is pushing hard against the rebels in this region of rice paddies and coconut trees northeast of the garrison town of Vavuniya. The road to the base begins at Kebitigollewa, a town centred around a clock tower whose modern red digital face seems out of place above the gritty streets.
One of the bloodiest attacks of the war occurred here in 2006, a roadside mine explosion that killed more than 60 civilians. From Kebitigollewa, the road cuts north through open fields and rows of லூகளிகே houses built to resettle families displaced by the war.
The countryside is filled with a strange mix of images: an egret wades in the flooded farmland and a mongoose darts into the bush; a woman in a white sari balances a water jug atop her head; and there is the red flag of the hardline People's Liberation Front party fluttering from a power line.
The town of Parakramapura is very close to what the military calls the "non-liberated areas," the misshapen chunk of territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers. The road is rutted as it follows the Welioya river, where a woman washes her long, gray hair below a sluice gate, and another dunks her laundry, wrings it tight and slaps it onto a rock to dry.
"Troops ahead, drive slowly," reads a road sign.
The guerrillas in this district are fighting fiercely to hold their line against the advancing government forces, the general says. "It's heavy fighting, almost every day. Our aim is to move forward; day by day we are moving forward."
Using a red laser pointer, Brig. Jayawardena traces the front line on a map that hangs on his wall between two spent artillery shell casings. He says it has been shifting north a few hundred metres at a time, moving deeper into territory formerly held by the rebels. (As he speaks, there is another eardrum-shattering artillery boom, but again, he takes no notice.)
Last month, government forces captured a Tamil Tigers camp called Jeevan Base. As they took the camp, they found holes that lead into a maze of underground bunkers - offices and sleeping quarters all but invisible from above.
"They have made all these bunkers with full concrete. This means even an artillery shell or an air strike, it won't destroy it," he says. "Maybe the top leader has been staying there," he adds, referring to the elusive Tamil Tigers boss Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Brig. Jayawardena commands Area Headquarters -Welioya, the rear base of the 223 and 224 Brigades of the Sri Lankan Army. Each has three battalions that patrol the roads, protect local villages and fight the Tamil Tigers west and north of here. Welioya is also a transit point for guerrillas. It lies between the rebel stronghold in the north and the eastern province where the Tigers have been trying to reignite their civil war after losing the area to government forces last year.
Guerrilla fighters regularly try to cross through the paddy fields to infiltrate the east, the general says. "About 10 days back, a couple of terrorists infiltrated the FDA (forward defence area) and we did an operation and killed all the terrorists and captured all their weapons."
One of the handful of generals who command troops along the front, Brig. Jayawardena was trained in India, Pakistan, Georgia and Hawaii. He has studied counter-insurgency and counterterrorism.
The scar on his wrist shows he has also done his share of combat duty. He got it three years ago in Jaffna, where he was a brigade commander. A mortar shell landed near him and the shrapnel struck his right arm.
"In my opinion, they are not strong," he says of the guerrillas. "What they do is they find our weaknesses and they do various things. If we keep alert and train, they can't do damage to us."
His boss is Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka, who makes weekly visits to the region to check on the war's progress and talk strategy.
In an interview, Lt.-Gen. Fonseka talks candidly about the war, which he believes will be over in less than a year, and his views on the militant Tamil nationalism that has spilled from Sri Lanka into countries with ethnic Tamil diasporas, Canada included.
"The national leadership basically is determined to solve this problem," he says. "The task given to us is to eradicate terrorism ... If we have the same commitment one more year, the LTTE's destination is, I think, decided."
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
In the general's view, the war is driven by Tamils who want a homeland and have chosen Sri Lanka as the place. But he says the country's ethnic Sinhalese majority will never allow the ethnic Tamil minority to break the island apart.
Lt.-Gen. Fonseka is a competitive swimmer who won the U.S. Green Card lottery but has remained in Sri Lanka, heading the army he has served for three decades. He is lucky to be alive. On April 25, 2006,
a suicide bomber attacked his limousine in Colombo. He was seriously injured in the assassination attempt and nine others were killed. The Tamil Tigers never claim responsibility for such attacks but were almost certainly behind it.
"I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people," he says.
"We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country.
"We are also a strong nation ... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."
========================
He dismisses concerns by international human rights groups about the conduct of his forces, saying that while civilian deaths are inevitable in war, relatively few non-combatants have died in the Sri Lankan conflict.
The guerrillas' central problem is manpower, he says. During the current phase of the civil war, the Sri Lankan forces have killed 8,000 rebel fighters in the north and 2,000 in the east, while another 1,000 have been killed in air strikes, he says.
According to the army's calculations, that leaves the Tamil Tigers with no more than 4,000 remaining cadres, while the Sri Lankan forces have 250,000 men and women, and plenty of weaponry.
"So it's a matter of time," Lt.-Gen. Fonseka says.
But the Tigers are well-armed; they have ammunition, artillery, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, multi-barreled rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and mines. "Every inch is booby-trapped in the jungle.
De-mining those areas will take minimum 20 years," he says.
Brig. Jayawardena does not deny it is a tough fight; that moving forward is a slow, painful task, and that he will lose more soldiers. But he believes the government's strategy is working and that the war will be over soon enough.
"It is a big headache for us, for development, for the economy. War is not a good thing but we have to fight and protect our normal citizens.
"That is our duty."
National Postsbell@nationalpost.com
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