Dhanapala says happy about Mannar situation

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 November 2004, 11:56 GMT]
“I am happy that in Mannar we have a relatively low number of cease fire violations that reflects very well the situation in Mannar”, said Mr. Jayantha Dhanapala, Secretary General of the Sri Lankan government’s Peace Secretariat, speaking to journalists briefly during an official visit to Vavuniya Wednesday. However, he refused to take questions from the media. Accompanied by Maj. Gen. Parami Kulatunga, Sri Lankan armed forces commander for the Vanni, Mr. Dhanapala visited the main entry point on the line of control at Omanthai, 15 kilometres north Vavuniya.

With Maj. Gen. Parami Kulatunga at Omanthai

He said he visited Omanthai “with a view to seeing how the clearance of goods and passengers takes place from the cleared areas to un-cleared areas and vice versa”.

The Secretary General of the Sri Lankan government Peace Secretariat visited the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission office in the northern border town and discussed with the truce monitors the implementation of the Cease Fire Agreement CFA between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers in the region.

Mr. Dhanapala arrived around 9.30 a.m. Wednesday and had meetings with Sri Lankan armed forces officers at the JOSSOP base in Vavuniya.

He met the Vavuniya GA Mr. Ganesh and later had a meeting with civil society leaders at the office Rural Development Foundation, an NGO working in the region.

“I heard from them grievances regarding the current situation, especially with regard to resettlement”, he said commenting on the meeting.

Mr. Dhanapala then visited a refugee camp at Poonthottam, an outer suburb of Vavuniya.

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