Major General Trond Furuhovde, head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, will ask the Government of Sri Lanka to establish an Independent Special Commission to inquire into an alleged assault on two LTTE members in Velanai village on the Jaffna island of Kayts on the evening of Thursday 20th. The Special Commission is to be established as soon as possible and, if accepted by the Government, will report directly to the Prime Minister. High ranking representatives of the Sri Lanka Navy and Army, Chief of Police in Jaffna peninsula and representatives of the LTTE agreed on this, in a meeting at the SLMM district office in Jaffna today.

Furthermore, SLMM will establish a “Point of Contact” on the island of Kayts, with an SLMM monitor present on a regular basis, and the Sri Lanka Army Commander on Kayts island has accepted to provide the LTTE political workers on Kayts with sufficient possibilities of communication. In addition to this, the Army, Navy, Police and LTTE will each do a separate thorough investigation on the alleged assault.

LTTE political workers on Kayts complained late Thursday evening of having been threatened and allegedly assaulted, by eight men: Two in army uniforms, one in navy uniform and five masked civilians. At the meeting in SLMM’s Jaffna office today, all parties gave their account of what had happened. Those accounts are quite contradictory and therefore the parties agreed on SLMM asking the Government for an Independent Special Commisson to inquire into the matter, in addition to their own separate investigations. One thing is clear; if the members of Sri Lanka Navy and Army have truly participated in an assault, they did so as separate individuals, and were disobeying orders from their superiors. The meeting ended on very positive terms, with all members present shaking hands and leaving the premises in a good constructive mood.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, SLMM, monitors the implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement, reached by the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, on 22nd february 2002. SLMM has six district offices and local monitoring committees in the Eastern and Northern part of Sri Lanka, two naval monitoring teams based in Jaffna and Trincomalee and Liaison officers to both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government. All people in Sri Lanka can make complaints to the SLMM if they believe they can point out a possible violation of the Ceasefire Agreement by the LTTE, the Sri Lankan Government or any other party.

Released By
SLMM HQ
Colombo

SLMM Press & Information Officer
Mr. Teitur Torkelsson
Tel: 077 712 080

Ref: SLMM HQ/22nd June 2002/MED/6004