The Defense Spokesman Minister Kehelia Rambukwella and the Military Spokesman, Brigadier S.A.P.P. Samarasinghe addressed this week's media briefing. Both spokespersons concentrated on the latest development on capture of the traitors. Apart from the briefing of the traitors, the Defense Spokesman also quickly mentioned,
1. The Mailaddi port that reconstructed by the Sri Lanka Navy in 45 days to assist with transportation of goods to the North. Even though the real issue is not of hunger, it is still the responsibility of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to ensure that the needs of the people are met. As such, 40 Lorries of Sri Lanka Army are used for distribution purposes.
2. Following the statement Minister Anura Bandarnayaka made on the threat to his life, the IGP has sent a team to conduct a full investigation on the matter.
The Defense Spokesman outlined the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed in the wake of the arrests of the railway serviceman and the 2 journalists, both registered in the MCNS list. Terming these as abductions, trade unions and other organizations were about to stage a strike on public services. Even in yesterday's Parliament session, this issue had been brought up and protested over what the Opposition Leader has called the abduction of the innocent man – Upali Senevirathna. However, these 3 within 24 hours of the arrest confessed to acts of terrorism.
Whilst appreciating the comradeship that exists amongst the journalists, the Defense Spokesman pointed out that the GoSL is not working on a personal agenda, but on an agenda of national security. This encompasses everyone in Sri Lanka – Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims and certainly the journalists as well. This, he said, is a huge challenge to the GoSL and the system is not always perfect.
He stressed that there is no country in the world that has the perfect system to meet this challenge. The poorer the country gets, the imperfection is more pronounced. Taking Vakarai hospital as a case in point, he explained how the incident was highlighted. However, he noted that no one was told that 3 LTTE camps were situated directly behind the hospital. If as in US, where the intelligence budget is 3 times that of the Sri Lankan national budget, we also had the technology, then we too could have known with accuracy the location of the terrorist camps.
Elaborating further on fulfilling this challenge with its many constraints, he said sometimes the boundaries of human rights get pushed about. However, he stressed that there needs to be limits as in a democratic country and these limits have not been exceeded.
The Defense Spokesman then outlined the events that led to the arrest. Upon civilian information, the Security Forces were alerted to the suspicious behavior of these 3. The arrests were made after observing them and having them in close surveillance for a long period of time. After the arrest, they revealed their past activities as well as a plan to create a massive destruction in Colombo.
Answering a related question from the audience on similar arrests been made on the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Vakarai, the Defense Spokesman explained that the Vakarai operation was a brilliant security maneuver where there were 0 civilian casualties, minimum casualties to the Security Forces and maximum to the tiger terrorists. The columns of the Security Forces marched into Vakarai, allowing the civilians to move out of the area. Some of the terrorists hid amidst these civilians and also escaped into the IDP camps. This has led to the arrests said the Defense Spokesman.
