Referring to the question raised by me, Shanie says "that is a question which this columnist cannot answer for the AHRC". But, when I read her comments on 24th May 2008, about the AHRC, I thought that she had first hand knowledge about the activities of the AHRC, especially when she says that "AHRC is a respected Hong Kong based body that has taken up many human right causes where the victims were lesser known persons" Well, I was talking about the fate of five lesser known persons.

She further says that "the treatment of prisoners of war are governed by the Geneva Convention. Even though the LTTE may not be signatories to the protocols of the convention, we would expect them to honour the Geneva Convention". Some fat hope, that is. How can we expect them to honour the Geneva convention to which they are not a signatory, whereas the Memorandum of Understanding, to which they were a signatory in 2002, was violated over 4000 times!

In such a scenario, Shanie, who has a very wide knowledge of the activities of the AHRC (according to her original letter) should appeal to the AHRC through her columns for some concrete action on their part for the release of the five members of our security forces held incommunicado at Kilinochchi since 2006, especially in view of the fact that the near and dear ones of these five persons have appealed to the NGO's and other various bodies to arrange for their release. It must also not be forgotten that if not for the tremendous sacrifices made by our Security Forces, during the last few years, neither Shanie, nor this writer, nor the other citizens of this country will be enjoying the type of freedom which they now enjoy. All of us, therefore, owe a deep debt of gratitude to our security forces and the least we can do at this point of time is to agitate for the release of these five "lesser known persons"