By Walter Jayawardhana

President Mahinda Rajapaksa told more than 3000 womenƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s organization activists and representatives of Galle District assembled at the Temple Trees premises in Colombo that the country could be saved because of mothers who gave their sons to the nation to serve as soldiers but the reactionary forces today want to send them to gallows branding them as war criminals.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-A time has come before you to teach them and the international forces who back them up a good lesson and to give an appropriate replyƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, said the President in an obvious reference to the Southern Province Provincial Council elections.

He said like the former regimes of the United National Party, who are now campaigning for Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s military men to be tried ,for the war with the enemy , he did not burn the relatives of Prabhakaran , the LTTE leader on pyres of tyres.

By replying to the UNP agents the Southern voters will also be delivering a strong message to their international backers, the President said emphatically.

He said an insult to oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s motherland is worse than an insult to oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s own mother. ThatƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s exactly what todayƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Opposition is doing by branding our heroic soldiers war criminals.

He said the UNP regimes burnt their political enemies on public roads to instil fear among the rest of the people. Instead he treated Tamil Muslim and Sinhalese civilians with utmost kindness to save them from cruelty.

He said all the foreign funded NGOƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s who were supporting the terrorists few months ago are supporting the Opposition today.

Meanwhile addressing the United National Party supporters from Galle who have crossed over to the PresidentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s ruling coalition the President said that certain forces are telling that our soldiers should be sent to a trial for war crimes. The Southern people should tell them in no uncertain terms that they did not have any rights to interfere in the affairs of Sri Lanka.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa told Galle District lawyers who assembled at Temple trees earlier that his government never built pyres of tyres like the former United National Party administration which corpses of political opponents were burnt publicly to scare the rest of the other opponents in Northern or Eastern Provinces.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Instead I treated the Tamil Muslim and Sinhalese civilians in those areas equally with the milk of human kindness and the very violators of human rights who burnt bodies on pyres of tyres during the era of terror are accusing me of violations campaigning against the government and trying to blot the governmentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s copy book internationally,ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ the President told about 300 lawyers of Galle District.

There was no violence created against the civilians like the violence created for the civilians under the UNP administrations from 1987-91, Mahinda Rajapaksa insisted.