French army officer visits Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 July 2003, 16:25 GMT]
The French army attaché for Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives visited Batticaloa Monday and met with the military, Police, the Catholic Bishop, Muslim civil society leaders and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Sri Lankan Police sources in the eastern town said.

The officer, Col. Jean Pierre Seshnec, is on a fact finding cum familiarization tour and was keen to obtain a wide spectrum of views on the current state of the peace process and the cease fire between the Liberation Tigers and Colombo, the sources said.

The Batticaloa – Trincomalee Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Kingsley Swampillai, pointed out to Col. Seshnec the constitutional obstacles to achieving an acceptable settlement to the conflict which may eventually undermine the peace talks, church sources said.

The French officer met Senior Superintendent of Police for Batticaloa, Mr. Lasantha De Silva. Col. Seshnec visited the SLA’s 23 Division Headquarters and the military camp in abandoned Tamil town of Punanai, about 50 kilometres northwest of Batticaloa before his arrival in the eastern town, Police sources said.