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Ms.
Chandrika Bandaranayke Kumaratunga,
The
President,
President’s
House,
Sri Lanka.
Your Excellency,
Report of Presidential Commission on the great
betrayal of Athurigiriya
The UNP government which came to power at the
General Election of 5th December, 2001 carried out the
greatest betrayal against this country even before it had been in office
for three months. Fictitious accusations were brought up against the
special Army unit belonging to Army Intelligence sector that was
centered in a house in Millennium City complex, the personnel were
arrested, revealed to tiger terrorists and were betrayed. As soon as
this crime was committed Your Excellency, as the President, appointed a
Presidential Commission to probe this matter. We believe it was a
correct decision taken by your Excellency at that moment.
By now this Commission has forwarded its report. We
of the Patriotic National Movement (PNM) too studied this report. We
believe that the facts found in the report to be true.
According to the report of this Commission Kulasiri
Udugampola, ASP and his brother Lt. Col. Padmasiri Udugampola, by
supplying necessary information, were directly involved in raiding the
aforesaid house. These individuals acted to raid this house setting
forth false allegations, revealed the safe house and the personnel
attached to it with the knowledge and approval of Ranil Wickremasinghe,
the Prime Minister, John Amaratunga, former Minister of Interior,
Charithe Ratwatte, the present secretary of the Ministry of Finance and
former president of the UNP. They as well as the former IGP failing to
take any action to prevent the raid confirms this. It is also revealed
that the former Minister of Interior and his secretary Lal Ratnayake
were the individuals who specially acted to interpret this betrayal as a
“conspiracy to assassinate the PM” and gave it immense publicity.
The Commission has found out all these details
after recording evidence from all parties relevant to this incident. The
conclusion the Commission has come at basing on these evidence is that
many individuals of the government including the Prime Minister are
responsible for this act.
We know that patriots of all nationalities –
Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim – were engaged in this special team of the
Army Intelligence Unit. It is evident that they were dedicated fighters
of the Motherland, who penetrated deep into areas forcefully occupied by
separatist tiger terrorists and successfully carried out attacks against
selected targets and important terrorist leaders. In deed this unit,
with its successes, terrorized the terrorists. It is apparent that one
of the matters of the secret agreement Mr. Rail Wickremasinghe had with
tiger organization before the General Election was to expose this
special Army unit and destroy it. Accordingly, after Mr. Ranil
Wickremasinghe came to power he employed a treacherous police officer
and several others to fulfill the promise he had given to tiger
terrorists. It is none other than this great betrayal of Athurugiriya.
Your Excellency,
This treacherous betrayal cannot be compared with
any other in our history. The betrayal by “Thambi Mudiyanse”, a
forefather of former President late Mr. J.R.Jayawardene, of handing over
Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe, the king of Kande Udarata, our last kingdom to
the British may be a lesser comparison to it. The patriotic team of the
Army intelligence, who fought resolutely for the defense of the
Motherland against tiger terrorists, the real enemies of the Motherland,
should be considered real heroes and should be admired. But what
actually happened was these Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim patriots were
implicated with the murders of Udathalawinna, accused of a conspiracy to
assassinate the PM, exposed, scoffed at, arrested and betrayed to the
separatist tiger terrorists. It is hard to believe that an act like this
could be done by anyone with an iota of affection to the country and the
people. We consider this as a deplorable, unwarranted and a criminal
treachery.
Neither the government nor anyone has come to their
aid.
Taking all these into consideration we, of the
Patriotic National Movement, would like to make two requests from your
Excellency.
- We earnestly request
your Excellency as the Executive President of the country as well as
the Minister of Defense and Minister of Interior to take immediate
steps to arrest all those responsible for this great Athurugiriya
betrayal including Premier Ranil Wickremasinghe and all those UNP
members who are involved in this crime with him, Kulasiri Udugampola,
ASP, Col. Padmasiri Udugampola, Col. D.G.Dissanayake and others of the
Police and the Army who are involved, bring them before courts and
punish them according to the law of the country. We also would like to
point out that Your Excellency should see to it that the destiny of
the other commission reports in history such as the “Batalanda
commission report” would not happen to this report.
- We would like to
request from your Excellency to allocate from either the Presidential
fund or from any other source monies to build houses to the families
of those Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim members of Army Intelligence Unit
who were murdered by tiger terrorists as a result of this great
betrayal, to grant their families a monthly allowance or a total
amount and take necessary steps for their security. Also, we believe
that your Excellency would take action to protect and grant the
needful to all those members of that special unit who are in dire
straits.
Your Excellency,
It is you who can make
this great betrayal of Athurugiriya the one and the final one of its
kind. It is evident that it is our responsibility that this type of
betrayals does not occur again. The most important of this is to bring
all those involved in the betrayal before the law without considering
any designation. The whole Nation expects that your Excellency would
fulfill this request as you are the Leader of the State, Minister of
Defense and Minister of Interior. We wish your Excellency strength to
fulfill this great expectation of our people.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Rev. Elle Gunawanshe Thero.
Rev. Dhambara Amila Thero.
Prof.
Chandana Abeyratne
Wimal
Weerawanse, Member of Parliament
Arjuna
Ranathunge, Member of Parliament
Piyal
Parakrama, Environmentalist
Cyril
Wickremage, Cinema Artist
16.12.2003
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