26.8.2008

Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickremanayake has assured that the Government of Sri Lanka does not have any chemical weapons or mass destructive weapons in its possession and expressed doubts that the LTTE terrorist outfit might adopt into such military tactics now or later.

Mr. Wickramanayake said that he said he was certain of one thing: the LTTE was on its last legs.

`Our security forces have cornered them in their holes in a stretch of wilderness in the North of the country. We expect to be rid of this menace soon, weapons and all, but life must go on and people must always be alert,' the Prime Minister said inaugurating the regional meeting of Asian Parliamentarians to discuss the national implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in Colombo where he was the Chief Guest.

He said that paying attention to such threats should not be evaded as there is a need to guard against possible evil intentions harboured by others now or in the future.

Recalling the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) describing the LTTE as the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world, the Prime Minister said "We have to be prepared and alert".

He stressed the need to unite under one umbrella to combat the scourge of terrorism.

`Chemical weapons are weapons of terrorism; there are no peaceful uses for them", he said adding that when the British used gas to kill hundreds of Kurdish people in their wars in West Asia early last century it was terrorism.

"The arch imperialist Churchill justified it saying that `It is alright to kill niggers`. That was the white man's attitude, a lack of feeling for people of a different colour that accompanied the dropping of atomic bombs which massacred hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the World War II and those were weapons of mass destruction and that was terrorism. That was by the Americans, who were later to accuse Iraq's Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction, despite the testimony of their own inspectors that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

The Prime Minister also questioned the right such people now have to interfere with human rights issue in Sri Lanka when the country is deeply threatened by the `World s most ruthless terrorist outfit'.