Nordic monitors blames military for massacre of 17 aid workers

Colombo, Aug 30 (UNI) The Nordic truce monitors, overseeing the fragile truce between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels, in a ruling today blamed the government security forces of being involved in the widely-condemned execution-style killing of 17 local staff of a French non-governmental charity agency, Action Contre La Fiam (ACF).

Noting the facts outlined in the SLMM findings, there are very strong indications that the security forces are involved in the act despite their denial, they said, Taking into consideration the fact that the security forces had been present in Muttur at the time of the incident, it appears highly unlikely to blame other groups for the killing, the statement of the Nordic truce monitors, officially known as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said.

The statement also said the outgoing head of the SLMM, Swedish Major General Ulf Hericsson, had confidential conversations with reliable sources regarding the parties who were most likely to be responsible for the act.

Concluding with the supporting information arisen from the persons interviewed and the conversations with the representatives of the international community, the SLMM said it was convinced that there cannot be any other armed groups than the security forces who could actually have been behind the act.

Making his recommendations after the ruling, the SLMM head said the committed act of assassination has approved to be one of the most serious recent crimes against humanitarian aid workers worldwide and has to be strongly condemned internationally.

''I urge the Sri Lankan government to take all necessary action to immediately stop any kind of violence against the civilians of Sri Lanka and to do its utmost that the matter is thoroughly investigated by the Sri Lankan authorities,'' Major General Henricsson was being quoted as saying in the statement.

Seventeen Tamil local aid workers of the ACF, including four women, were found shot dead in the war-hit Muslim-dominated town of Muttur in the Trincomalee, where the government troops and the Tamil Tigers fought a bitter battle during the first week of August.

The government, which claimed that it would launch an independent probe into the killings to bring the perpetrators into book, is yet to come out with its findings.

Similarly, the SLMM has also ruled that the attack on the civilian bus in Kebithikollawa, where 67 innocent Sinhalese passengers were killed, was the work of the LTTE.

Based on SLMM inquiries and the well known modus operandi of the LTTE, the SLMM considers highly probablity that there can be no other armed element than the LTTE and LTTE-affiliated forces that have had the motive to carry out the attack, in particular in the government controlled areas, the SLMM said.

There were no immediate reactions either from the government or from the LTTE on the latest ruling of the SLMM.

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