Fmr Govt. prioritized reconciliation over national security; witness

The Defence Ministry prioritized reconciliation over national security during the previous government and in retrospect this was a mistake, former CNI Sisira Mendis yesterday informed the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks.

The witness made this comment responding to a question posed by a commissioner who asked if the defence ministry prioritized reconciliation over national security.

Reconciliation came first during the previous administration and was trying to improve country's image because Sri Lanka was facing many issues internationally.

"A lot of foreigners came into talk about reconciliation and defence secretaries had to sit down with them and had continual discussions,"Mr. Mendis said.

The witness added that at a certain point of time, he wondered whether they were talking about intelligence activities during weekly intelligence review meetings.

"The government also wanted to release lands in the North that were held by the security forces. This is not an easy thing to do. Releasing land took so much of our time. There were no barriers on the roads and no search operations. People forgot about security. I knew the importance of national security but there wasn't anything we could do," the witness said. (Yoshitha Perera)