Sri Lanka on Monday accused human rights watchdog Amnesty International of joining hands with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sympathizers, as the death toll from fierce weekend clashes rose to 95 in the embattled north.
In a statement, the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry said that the London-based Amnesty had organised a demonstration in front of the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York on Friday.
The statement said that Amnesty International was blatantly infiltrated by sympathisers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who were living in the United States and Canada.
"Amnesty International billed this demonstration as an effort to protest to the Sri Lankan government against harassment and killing of several media personnel in Sri Lanka, claiming that most victims were Tamils," it said.
"It is regrettable that Amnesty International has allowed and apparently joined hands with LTTE sympathizers to bring discredit to Sri Lanka, in favour of the LTTE agenda in the guise of promoting human rights," the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry said.
The military on Sunday said that 78 LTTE militants and 10 soldiers had died in the weekend clashes. Five rebels and two soldiers were killed in fresh fighting, the officials said today.
Security forces killed one LTTE militant in Muhamalai in Jaffna Peninsula . In another incident, at least two Tiger rebels were gunned down in Vediyamurippu in North-western Mannar on Sunday.
Separately, the army gunned down one Tiger cadre in Vavuniya on Sunday, it said.
In another confrontation, security forces killed one LTTE cadre and injured 14 others in clashes at Janakapura and Kiribbanwewa in North-eastern Welioya on Sunday. Security forces lost a soldier at Vedimakulam in Vavuniya on Sunday while another was killed in a separate confrontation at Illanthairan in Mannar.