A Sri Lankan minister has refuted allegations of war crimes while talking to Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi, reported the Colombo Telegraph.
Akashi had criticised Sri Lanka's failure to act on human rights issues during his visit.
Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka told Akashi that no war crimes occurred and that the number of dead was under 8,000, according to the census carried out by his government.
“It is unfair that a massive campaign is going on against the country based on baseless figures of deaths during the latter part of the war,
“The LTTE killed innocent civilians when efforts were being made to free them from the terrorists’ hold,” he said, adding that the forces were showed utmost restraint.
“Had they wanted to kill the Tamil people, over 11,000 hardcore combatants who surrendered to the forces could have been killed,” he said.
Ranawaka also said the TNA’s landslide election victory was due to foreign conspiracies.
“The Tamil National Alliance obtained only 37 percent of votes from the Jaffna peninsula in 2010 and this figure doubled by 2013 due to the massive campaign launched by Tamil Nadu and several western countries based on communalism.”
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