Slamming the Sri Lankan government's announcement of a war survey to count the dead, the Global Tamil Forum, told Tamil Guardian, that it was the latest "escape mechanism" by the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, employed each time "the noose falls on his neck".

Speaking to Tamil Guardian last night, the GTF's spokesperson, Mr Suren Surendiran said,

"Mahinda Rajapaksa always comes up with ideas of commissions of various kinds every time when the noose falls on his neck as an escape mechanism. He thinks that he can fool the international community every time by suggesting of steps that are basically a delaying tactic as he himself and his siblings are accused to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity"

On the back drop of the Sri Lankan state's failure to provide justice to the Tamils, Mr Surendiran said that Mahinda Rajapaksa "has a track record of lying which gives zero confidence to anyone particularly to the victims that this idea of counting the dead and disappeared has any credibility whatsoever."

"He has blatantly lied to the international community on several occasions," he added.

Highlighting the Sri Lankan government's absolute denial of any previous casualities during the immediate aftermath of the armed conflict, Mr Surendiran said,

"He is the same man who claimed at the end of the war that there were zero civilian casualty when it is claimed that over 100,000 could have perished at the hands of the military of which he is the Commander in Chief...  Less than two weeks before the end of the war, he claimed that there were only 5,000 or maximum 10,000 civilians left in the so called no fire zone, when we ended up with nearly 300,000 coming out of the zone."