US ambassador visits mass graves site in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2001, 19:11 GMT]
"If you say that the LTTE is a terrorist organization then you must also accept that the Sri Lankan government is promoting terrorism in the country", representatives from the University of Jaffna told the US ambassador for Sri Lanka, Mr. Ashley Wills, during a discussion Wednesday in the northern town.

They urged Ambassador Wills that America should lift the ban on the LTTE and to help the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers to find a political solution.

The ambassador and officials from the American embassy in Colombo visited Chemmani in Jaffna where the skeletal remains of scores of men and women arrested and killed by the Sri Lanka army were exhumed in 1998-99. Human rights activists in the north say that many among the more than six hundred civilians in Jaffna who were arrested by the SLA and were reported missing in 1996, lie buried here.

Ambassador Mr. Wills met the representatives of the Jaffna University this afternoon at U.N.D.P's office in the northern town. They told the US Ambassador that Tamils in Sri Lanka have recognized the LTTE as their sole representative.

"LTTE is the only organization that is now working to achieve the legitimate rights and aspirations of Tamil people", they told him.

The US ambassador spoke at a meeting arranged at the Jaffna Municipal Library Auditorium in the morning. Commenting on the ethnic conflict he said that Sri Lanka's ethnic problem is a complicated one, but that it can be solved without any complication."

He said that not only Tamils but a large number of Sinhala people have also suffered due to the war.

The ambassador said that the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan government should commence talks to find a peaceful political settlement to the ethnic problem. He appealed to the LTTE to enter the democratic stream to find a political solution to the conflict.