Kohona tells UN :

Civilian life in North protected by Lankan state

Zero casualty figure adopted :

*Allegations of infractions only after LTTE’s fate was sealed

*Tigers made Tamil civilians part of its military strategy

The Sri Lankan government took utmost care to draw a clear distinction between civilians and terrorists during almost three decades of combatting terrorism, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr Palitha Kohona said taking part in the UN Security Council debate in New York on Tuesday.

Dr Palitha Kohona

He also noted that while allegations of infractions have emerged after the end of the conflict these allegations were not heard until the end became abundantly clear to the terrorist LTTE.

Once the end of the terrorists became obvious, a well oiled propaganda machine began to churn out reams of allegations to set the stage to continue the conflict by other means, Dr Kohona said.

He said: “Many of today’s conflicts take place within states and involve non-state armed groups. Sri Lanka’s experience relates, in particular, to the challenges we faced in protecting civilians in the context of an internal conflict, a challenge to the state itself, involving a ruthless terrorist group, the LTTE.

“In Sri Lanka, the LTTE terrorist group made the Tamil civilian population a part of their military strategy. The terrorists’ brutal strategy was to create a situation inviting civilian casualties by forcing civilians to be trained in weapons and take up arms, recruiting children for combat duties, and herding thousands of civilians to form human shields and holding them hostage and by placing heavy guns in their midst attracting retaliatory fire.”

He said “the civilians being used as human shields, by the terrorist group are our people. The strategy of the LTTE posed extraordinary operational challenges to our security forces engaged in combatting this group while ensuring the protection of civilians.” “The government for its part, adopted a zero civilian casualty policy. Our troops endeavoured to distinguish between combatants and civilians and the protection and liberation of the civilians from the clutches of the terrorist group was their highest priority. Over 280,000 civilians were eventually freed,” Dr Kohona said.