AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

by

Rev Dr. S. J. Emmanuel

Vicar General. Jaffna.

Seventeen innocent civilians, mostly children and aged, killed on the spot. Sixty seriously wounded and many houses damaged by fire in the early hours of Saturday morning of March 16. This was the planned retaliatory attach of the SriLankan Air Force on a sleeping village. For the third time in recent months, your Armed Forces have attacked this coastal village of Naachchikudah merely under a non-confirmed suspicion that some Sea Tigers were operating from that coast and without the least regard for the mass of poor refugees there.

They executed this disaster with their two newly-acquired Ml 24 helicopters flying over Mulankavil around 4.50 am and firing rockets (sideways ) into the fishing villageNaachchikudah. This least known village, lying 50 km west of Killinochchi became known mostly after the historic exodus of poor fishing families from Passayoor, Gurunagar, Navanthurai, Navali and Mathagal of the Jaffna district on October 30. They sought refuge in a coastal village so as to continue their survival with fishing - the one and only profession they know for their lively hood. This massacre of the innocents, as we have come to experience, within a few hours of the incident will most probably be 'explained away' by the Sri Lankan Forces in their now well known characteristic fashion. Well, that has been done all along in the case of a long series of massacres during the last forty years! None of these have been in any way compensated - neither houses built nor funeral expenses paid nor even apologies extended. Yet acknowledging you as Head of a Government proclaiming to seek a peaceful solution to the ethnic issue and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces sent to liberate the Tamil people from the Tigers. I think it is still our duty to place before you the glaring facts of the incident and ask a pertinent question from you.

On Friday 15.3.1996, it was reported that the Sri Lankan Navy had an encounter with some Sea Tigers off the Pallimunai (Mannar) sea, and while chasing the Tigers, the Navy had hit a sea-mine on the way and had lost eight of their personnel in the blast. No sane person will find fault if the Navy had chased the Tigers and at attacked them with all their might. But what did they do? They resorted hours later to one of the worst and cowardly acts of firing rockets on a sleeping village of refugees! We can understand civilians getting caught in an exchange of fire between fighting forces, but not a retaliation of this nature.

The Tamil parties in Colombo might ask you for a commission of inquiry (not dare for any compensation) and the government, which appears to solve problems by just appointing commission after commission, might readily appoint just a one man commission, if possible of a soldier.

But we are not asking for any such thing, but plead with you for a convincing reply for the following questions:

* How is your Government going to bring to an end this spiral of violence which has been started many years ago by the previous governments ?

* How are you justifying such cowardly retaliation of the Forces as part of your

attempts for Peace?

(The above letter was written to the Presedent of Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumarathinge and appeared in Sri Lankan Sunday Times on 14. April 1996. By Rev.Dr.S.J.Emmanuel, Vicar General for Jaffna. )