It is, in fact, a joke that US has banned Army Commander Shavendra Silva from entering the US based on the allegations concerning the war crimes, with the US being the number one war criminal in the world, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) Leader Udaya Gammanpila said yesterday.

Addressing a news briefing, he said it was the US that slaughtered thousands of innocent people by dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“The US dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, killing 80,000 innocent people and injuring another 70,000. Besides, at least 40,000 were killed and 60,000 wounded in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki,” the MP said.

“At the end of World War II, the bombs were also dropped by the US into the air in Dresden, Germany, killing 25,000 people as the remaining bombs were expensive to transport to the US,” he added.

Nevertheless, he said during the Vietnam War, the US attacked innocent civilians with chemical weapons, biological weapons killing 3.8 million Vietnamese. Moreover, the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and killed over 1.5 million people on false charges of war against terrorism.

It is evident and obvious the number of war crimes that the US had committed leaving thousands of people dead. I would like to ask the US as to how and why they called Shavendra Silva a war criminal based on groundless evidence. (Sheain Fernandopulle)