Ambassador Warnakulasuriya contradicts Vatican newspaper reports on conflict

Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Italy Hemantha Warnakulasuriya has written to Vatican's official newspaper L' osservatore Roamano, contradicting and correcting some reports it had carried with regard to Sri Lanka.

His letter to editor Giovanni Maria Vian: "I wish to make reference to the regular news items that appear in your esteemed newspaper with regard to my country, Sri Lanka. Just to illustrate, I would cite the news reports in Osservatore Romano on 11th, 12th and 18th January 2008, concerning the present situation in Sri Lanka.

Though the State of Vatican does not come under my jurisdiction and as the paper is published by the Vatican, I did not have the opportunity to read it. Yet, a very respected and senior Catholic Priest brought these matters to my attention and I thought it was my bounden duty to clarify certain matters in the said news items, so that you would kindly act with circumspect when reporting matters relating to the on going conflict in Sri Lanka, in future.

The contents refer to events that are causing so much loss of life (both Sinhalese and Tamil) in the country, that I have the honour to represent, giving the incorrect and superficial impression that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is a group of freedom fighters on behalf of the Tamils in the country, operating for the liberty of a discriminated minority in Sri Lanka, thereby earning them the sympathy of the readers for their cause.

Moreover, permit me to point out that your news reporting on the violent situation in my country often tend to identify the notorious terrorist group LTTE (which practically consists of some thousands of youngsters who were captured when they were young and brain-washed) with the rest of the Tamil citizenry in the country.

His is a serious distortion mainly because it equates hundreds and thousands of innocent ordinary Tamil citizens with a terrorist organization. As a matter of fact, a good number of the recent victims of the LTTE terror are Tamils themselves who were branded by the same LTTE as "traitors" simply because they dissented from the LTTE terror tactics.

In reality, the LTTE is a terrorist organization and all their actions must be labelled as plain unjustified terrorist activities that hit indiscriminately and ruthlessly both military and civilian targets. The EU has banned the LTTE, with an official decision, describing it as one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations presently operating in the world.

The same decision had already been taken by the USA, leading to the confiscation of large sums of money, raised by funding agencies operating in its territory and destined to finance terrorist and subversive activity in Sri Lanka.

You may be aware that the FBI of the United Stats recently reported that the "LTTE is the most ruthless and efficient terrorist group in the world". It means, by logical deduction, that the LTTE is even superior and far deadlier to Al Quaeda.

To call them by any other name, other than terrorists, would present them in the eyes of the reader as a group that stands for freedom. And to equate them with the rest of the Tamils by using the word Tamils to be a synonym to the LTTE is ever more distorting.

Therefore, we kindly request you that in future when you refer to actions carried out by the LTTE, please do not hesitate to call them terrorists and not freedom fighters. Your newspaper also regularly reports that the LTTE has not admitted this or that crime they committed. It is preposterous to determine that the LTTE was not responsible for these attacks on the premise that it has not admitted them.

The history of the LTTE is smeared with killings of civilians of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnicity. The LTTE has killed a majority of the Tamil leaders, who stood for peaceful negotiations, calling them traitors.

The LTTE is not so naive to acknowledge in the past or in the present the unprovoked attacks on civilians, as they are quite aware of the repercussions that would follow if such admissions are made.

There is a possibility of the leader and his movement being arraigned before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. India has been regularly requesting the Sri Lankan government to extradite the LTTE leader the day he would be captured to try him for criminal activities, especially the murder of their Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

If I may take your time to show you that the LTTE vehemently denied the murder of this particular killing of Rajiv Gandhi, by a female suicide bomber, though the investigators indicted Prabahkaran and his intelligence Chief Pottu Amman with this dastardly crime. The lower Courts of India found both of them guilty as charged and the Supreme Court of India affirmed the conviction.

Yet, the LTTE denied its involvement in that crime at that time. When the Sri Lankan government, with the help of other friendly governments was forging ahead to rid the country of terrorism, the official spokesman and mentor of the LTTE, the late Dr. Anton Balasingham not only finally admitted but went on to say that the LTTE should unequivocally tender an apology to the Indian government for the killing of Rajiv Gandhi.

This clearly demonstrates the manner in which the LTTE normally denies the crimes it commits, and thus, confuses the world community and world media by posing as freedom fighters.

Moreover, the LTTE has committed ethnic cleansing by driving the Muslims from the Jaffna Peninsula and has left them displaced from their property and they are now living as refugees in another district in southern Sri Lanka.

The manner in which your paper has reported the recent dastardly act of using a claymore mine to kill, women, children and men, peacefully travelling in a bus and then randomly shooting the panic stricken survivors and later the farmers, gives the reader of your esteemed paper, who is oblivious to the methods adopted by the LTTE, the impression that the killing may have been by any other agency other than the LTTE, when the world community led by the EU, the USA and countries like India have no doubt as to who the culprits are.

But your reporting of superficial, one-sided information may induce your readers to believe that such blood shedding murderous attacks carried out by the LTTE, have been carried out by some other subversive organization, if not even by the Government itself, if no clear and specific reference is made to the LTTE.

We also note with regret that your newspaper gives the impression of refusing to identify the LTTE as a terrorist group. The wealth of information, from every single source, has clearly and without doubt, established that the LTTE is the most heinous, barbarous terrorist group in the world, who had perfected the use of suicide bombers, which is being tenaciously followed by the Al Qaida and other groups.

The LTTE has mastered the method of using children for their warfare and women and disabled persons as suicide bombers. Killing is the philosophy behind their ruthless campaign to control citizens under their control.

Any reference to the LTTE as rebels or freedom fighters is undue publicity given to an internationally banned terrorist organization. Still worse, is to identify them with the rest of the ordinary Sri Lankan Tamil citizens.

To my knowledge the Catholic Church condemns unequivocally acts of terrorism; this, surely was the teaching of the late venerable Pope John Paul II. But your newspaper seems to be not keeping in line with this official trend of the Catholic Church.

Finally, I kindly request you, to attend to this matter so that the good will of the Catholic community in Sri Lanka (which is ceaselessly endeavouring for a peaceful settlement in the country) will not be tarnished and marred by such irresponsible reporting on the part of the official newspaper of the Catholic Church. Moreover, it does damage the credibility of the newspaper itself."