What is the Shameless Racist Henricsson's motive?
 

The premature judgment, without substantive evidence of made by the
SLMM Head, ruling the government on the killing of the 17 Aid Workers,
was timely made when the President was on a delicate mission
negotiating with the Prime Minister of UK, Tony Blair, said the Peace
Secretariat in its latest press release.

Full text of the press release is as follows.

Members of the legal fraternity commenting in the media on the recent
ruling by SLMM on the killing of 17 Aid Workers attached to Action
Against Hunger (ACF) in Muttur have stated that the Head of SLMM has
based his ruling on speculation and innuendo in an unfortunate attempt
to bring disrepute to the Sri Lankan Security Forces.

Given the international engagements of the President at the time, the
selective timing of the SLMM ruling and its motives are extremely
questionable.

In their comments the Lawyers have established clearly the facts
relating to the incident, which in their view have been grossly
distorted by Major General (Retd) Henricsson. The Lawyers have
highlighted the following factual circumstances that have been ignored
in the SLMM ruling.

The Judicial Medical Officer who performed the post-mortem examinations
on the deceased has indicated the probable time of death to be between
the night of 3 August and 4 August 2006. According to the ACF office in
Trincomalee which had maintained radio contact with the ACF Muttur
Office every 30 minutes from 1 August, the last contact was at 06:10
hrs on the morning of Friday 4 August. ACF had stated that after 06:10
hrs on the morning of Friday 4 August all attempts to contact the
Muttur Office by radio, mobile phone and satellite phone failed.
Thereby the estimated time of the incident can be placed between 06:10
a.m. and 06:40 a.m. on Friday 4 August.

According to TamilNet, the LTTE had infiltrated areas of Muttur Town
from around 02:35 GMT (i.e. about 9.00 p.m.) on 1 August until midnight
on Friday 4 August (see TamilNet news item of 02:35 GMT on 2.8.06;
19:18 hrs on 2.8.06 and 11:04 GMT on 5.8.06). Indeed TamilNet (August
5, 2006 11:04 GMT) states "the Military Spokesman of Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Irasaiah Ilanthiayan, told TamilNet that the
LTTE troops by midnight Friday, returned to their original positions as
per February 22, 2002 Ceasefire Agreement". The Security Forces were
able to completely secure Muttur Town only in the course of 5 August
2006. This shows that the LTTE had infiltrated Muttur Town and had
access to the ACF office between 06:10 hrs and 06:40 hrs on the morning
of Friday 4 August when most likely the incident took place.

TamilNet in its bulletin datelined 14:28 GMT on Saturday 5 August
states that the Sri Lanka Army had killed 15 Tamil Aid Workers.
However, the bulletin datelined 07:26 GMT on 8 August 2006 states that
the bodies of these unfortunate people were found by the Consortium of
Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) on Sunday, namely 6 August 2006. How could
the LTTE have been aware of these murders more than one day before the
discovery of the bodies.

Regarding the contention that the SLMM was denied access to Muttur by
the Armed Forces on both 5 and 6 August 2006 while journalists were
taken to Muttur. It is a manifest and undeniable fact that journalists
reporting armed conflicts willingly take risks of their own accord as a
part of their professional duties to report such conflicts. The fact
that journalists were permitted to travel to Muttur clearly establishes
that the Security Forces were positively disposed to such a situation.
The Government however, by the Ceasefire Agreement, undertook
responsibility for the safety and security of members of the SLMM. In
accordance with that duty the Government could not possibly have taken
members of the SLMM to this scene of fierce fighting on the day its
forces completely secured Muttur or on the following day. Moreover
Muttur was at that time, approachable only by sea. The Navy was then
stretched to the maximum and its vessels sailing to Muttur were always
at risk of being attacked from Sampur. The advisory by the Security
Forces regarding travel to Muttur was to ensure the safety of the SLMM
members.

It is extremely irresponsible that a pre-emptive ruling of this nature
was issued while a judicial inquiry with international assistance was
in progress. This action has significantly undermined the proper
judicial process.

The Lawyers point out that when considering the above facts the ruling
given by Maj. Gen. (Retd) Ulf Henricsson is baseless and lacks any real
evidence to apportion responsibility to the Security Forces for these
killings.