Govt. should have invited Darusman panel: Prof. Gunaratne

17 November 2011 12:03 am Views - 8280

Terrorism expert Prof. Rohan Gunaratne yesterday said that the government should have invited the Darusman panel to visit the country, without which they had produced a report based on information and propaganda gathered from the front organizations of the LTTE.

He also emphasized the need to establish an NGO advisory division and a diaspora division to counter the propaganda of the LTTE international network against Sri Lanka. Professor Gunaratne further pointed out that this is an immediate requirement in order to restore good relations with the countries in the West where the image of the country had been tarnished due to LTTE propaganda.

He was speaking at a forum held at the British Council on the topic “Future of Sri Lanka’s Security-Countering the LTTE on the Western Soil.”

“The foreign ministry could not counter the misinformation and false propaganda made by the LTTE internationally, which was one of the biggest mistakes we made. Propaganda is not always about the truth but we have to counter it,” he said.

“There were three centres of gravity of the LTTE. The first one was Prabhakaran, the second was its state of the art international network with a huge capacity to lobby, capacity to raise funds, procurement of weapons and state of the art shipping network. The third gravity was their specialist capability to fight,” he said.

People like Nediyavan, Father Emmanuel and Rudrakumaran are very much active in spreading false information through their front organizations and propaganda networks he said.

He also told the government to restore democracy in the Northern and Eastern Provinces by protecting peace achieved and move towards reconciliation.

He went on to point out that the LTTE was responsible for killing a large number of political and military leaders which cannot be compared to acts committed by any other terror organization.

 “The strategy adopted by the government in the post conflict era by initiating socio economic development, political engagement and providing humanitarian assistance for those who suffered during the war is commendable,” he said.

Prof. Gunaratne said that more and more social programmes should be carried out by the government to prevent another conflict and protect the peace achieved after decades of war. (By Supun Dias)