On 14 March 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ports and Aviation of Sri Lanka, Mangala Samaraweera, delivered a Special Address at the IISS. He spoke on ‘Challenges faced by Sri Lanka in Dealing with Terrorism’.
In his address on Sri Lanka’s particular challenges in dealing with terrorism, Mr Samaraweera said that the insurgent Tamil Tigers ‘had the dubious distinction of pioneering the lethal art of suicide attacks against civilian and other targets and instilling a suicide culture in child soldiers’. Diaspora funding of the terrorist group means that ‘increased military capacity building will inevitably follow’. He called on institutions such as the IISS to analyse and make recommendations on international action to reverse this trend.
