Colombo, May 19 2009: After vanquishing the LTTE, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa today sought to reach out to the ethnic Tamil minority, saying the Government does not accept the military solution as final and that his aim was to provide equal rights to all communities.

A day after eliminating Velupillai Prabhakaran and declaring that the 30-year-old war was over, the President said "our aim was to liberate our Tamil people from the clutches of the LTTE.

The war against LTTE is not a war against the Tamil people".

Rajapaksa was delivering the opening address at the Parliament session when he sought to extend an olive branch to Tamils by beginning the address in Tamil, even as the Lankan Army released pictures of Prabhakaran's body with bullet injuries in the head.

"Protecting the Tamil speaking people of this country is my responsibility.

That is my duty.

All the people of this country should live in safety without fear and suspicion.

All should live with equal rights.

That is my aim.

Let us all get together and build up this nation," he said in his brief remarks in Tamil.Rajapaksa said at this victorious moment "it is necessary for us to state with great responsibility that we do not accept a military solution as the final solution.

"Similarly, when we see the sad faces of the people who have been fleeing Puthumatalan area, we can realise that a document offered on a tray as a political solution could also not be the final solution".

"When we accept the responsibility for the people who have been liberated, we receive many proposals from various countries and institutions.

They ask us to look after our own Tamil people well," he said.

Rajapaksa said it was necessary to give the Tamil people the freedoms that are the right of people in all other parts of the country.

"Similarly, it is necessary that the political solutions they need should be brought closer to them faster than any country or Government in the world would bring.

"However, it cannot be an imported solution.

We do not have the time to be experimenting with the solutions suggested by other countries.

Therefore, it is necessary that we find a solution that is our very home, of our nation," he said, adding Sri Lanka expected cooperation for it from the international community and not obstruction.

Though Rajapaksa did not take the name of LTTE chief Prabhakaran in his long address, he made a brief reference to him, saying "the terrorist leader who was killed yesterday, until that time had his meals with the food and drink that the Government supplied".

He said over the last 30 years LTTE has killed many people � Sinahalese, Tamils and Muslims and recounted the loss of several thousand lives, property and assets.

"Hundreds of religious dignitaries as well as national leaders such as Premadasa and Rajiv Gandhi and great ministers such as Lakshman Kadirgamar, Damini Dissanayake, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and A H M Ashroff were lost to us," Rajapaksa said.

The President said it was LTTE that put the Tamil community to its lowest position.

"Those who raised their voice for the protection of the terrorists and all those who helped the terrorists should now fall at the feet of the Tamil mothers and seek their pardon." He said those who live abroad and support the terrorists with funds should not support terrorists again if they have any love for their people.

Rajapaksa said now that terrorism has been removed, the biggest obstacle the private sector faced in participating in the Northern Spring, an evironment has been created to carry out investments and engage in business.

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