Sri Lankan soldiers, who fought against the LTTE during the civil war, would not be dragged before courts just because the Tamil diaspora keeps demanding, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said.
Addressing a gathering in the Northern capital of Jaffna, Kumaratunga yesterday said the ordinary Tamil people wants to know what had happened to their disappeared relatives.
"They do not demand action against soldiers. But we will take action against those who had harmed ordinary civilians outside the war for no reason if their cases can be proved," Kumaratunga stressed.
"We have no intention to drag the soldiers before courts and send them to gallows," Kumaratunga said, adding that it was the Tamil diaspora who had not set a foot in the island during the war who are demanding action against the soldiers.
"We will not give into such demands from the diaspora who have formed NGOs," she said.
Kumaratunga was president between 1994 and 2005. In 1999, she survived a suicide bomb attack carried out by the LTTE in which she suffered severe eye injuries.
She now heads the office for national unity and reconciliation.
Her successor Mahinda Rajapaksa led the troops to victory in 2009 ending the nearly three-decades long civil war with the LTTE.
According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during Rajapaksa's regime that brought an end to the conflict with the defeat of LTTE.
President Maithripala Sirisena government received two years from the UNHRC last week to set up its accountability mechanism to probe alleged war crimes committed during the 37-year civil war.
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