"Military solution not possible"

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 June 1999, 12:12 GMT]
The government and the opposition should consider the losses caused by the war and work together to implement a political solution to the conflict, said former Air Vice Marshall Harry Goonetileke at a function held at the Royal College in Colombo yesterday.

He was speaking after unveiling a monument commemorating 38 old students who had been killed in the war, while serving in the security forces. He said that the number of soldiers killed was increasing and that trying to solve the problem militarily would only prolong the war.

Seventeen thousand members of the security forces have been killed and the defence expenditure has risen from 1 billion rupees in 1981 to 54 billion rupees, he said further.

The meeting was attended by, among the others, Maj.Gen.Gemunu Kulatunge, the school principal, family members of security forces personnel killed in the war and old boys from the school currently serving in the armed forces.