Foreign Affairs committee  I suppose it would have been madness for any media person to have gone into that conflict zone. However, the media subsequently have been taken to areas that were safe for them to visit, even media from Canada, such as a National Post reporter and Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, okay.

Foreign Affairs committee  The people of Sri Lanka have suffered the pain of three decades of terrorist violence, not knowing if their lives would be snatched by a Tamil Tiger, a suicide bomber, a bomb planted in a bus, train, or shopping centre, or a remote-control claymore bomb, as they went about their day-to-day living.

Foreign Affairs committee  My name is Mahinda Gunasekera. I'm the current president of the Sri Lanka United National Association. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity. As you know, Sri Lanka is a small island. It has a total land mass of roughly 25,000 square miles.