What can you say about the Mavil Aru crisis which ignited the present conflict situation?
As you know the water was closed by the LTTE. We advised them to reopen it and they said that it was to draw attention to the bad humanitarian situation in Eastern Sampur which I would say is very bad, because I have seen it. I advised them to open the water because attention was achieved. And they didn’t do it immediately and then the government started a military offensive which I think came too fast. I think there were still possibilities to negotiate it. I think also that they did what the LTTE wanted and the government has I can see it, not yet conquered the sluice gate, at least I haven’t seen proof or pictures of it yet. I should be surprised if they had achieved that goal. Q: What happened at Mavil Aru when you went there? A: Some 10 days ago, when I was in Trincomalee trying to monitor the situation in Muttur and we were denied access to the area which I was bad and created a lot of rumours. It would have been much better if we had been able to monitor it. We were refused tran
