By Walter Jayawardhana

The five Tamil doctors on whose statement the Western press based their stories on alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka , said their statements were actually made under pressure by the then heavily armed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorist outfit and were false.

The doctors who worked in LTTE occupied areas claimed that they gave false statements telling figures on civilian casualties and food and medicine shortages which were highly inflated and they were forced to release those figures by the insurgent LTTE.

The doctors escaped to the Sri Lanka government controlled areas few days before the LTTE was defeated by the government forces in May.

The doctors are now investigated for their activities during the war , and no charges have been yet framed against them. They were regularly quoted in the Western press as telling about the conditions about those areas

Dr. Ilancheliyan Pallavan , one of the doctors said, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-We regret that we provided false information.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

The five doctors were regularly in contact with media organizations and international organizations and releasing ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-informationƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ about the suffering of the civilians.

Dr. S. Sivapalan said , ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- ‘The LTTE was fighting a useless war in which civilians suffered. It was heartbreaking to see those between 14 and 15 injured in the conflict’.

The LTTE seized , said Dr. Thurairaja Sathyamoorty, Red Cross food shipments by land and sea and forced the doctors to claim that there were food shortages.