For the first time Govt. admits 5000 civilians died during the war

For the first time Govt. admits 5000 civilians died during the war[ Thursday, 07 July 2011, 04:10.59 AM GMT +05:30 ]President’s advisor and M P , Professor Rajeeva Wijesinghe yesterday confessed to the fact that he believed about 5000 civilians died during the last phase of the 4th Eelam war between the LTTE and the Govt. armed forces.

He admitted this when partaking in the discussion on the BBC ‘hard talk’ program.

Though the Govt. had been stubbornly stating that during the war no ordinary citizen was killed , this confession by the MP contradicted Govt.’s announcements. When the BBC media personnel questioned on this contradiction , ‘whether isn’t what you said contradictory to what the Govt. had been repeatedly telling ?’ , Wijesinghe replied , the Govt. forces under no circumstances targeted the ordinary citizens when attacking. He added that at that time he was the chief of the peace secretariat , and the figure arrived at was on a personal count by made by him based on the figures reported by the Tamil net compared with the details collected from the security divisions.

In any event , so far no decisions had been taken in regard to granting compensation to the 5000 civilians, but as far as possible immediate action is being taken to put them back in their original places of residence, he pointed out .

Rajeew Wijesinghe also declared that it is appropriate that a probe is conducted into the killings of the LTTE rebels after their surrender to the Forces as alleged by the UN in 2009 and the exposures in the Darusman report.

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