By Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo

	Mr. Rajapaksa says thousands of LTTE cadres were also killed

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that international critics of the Sri Lankan government tend to confuse rebel deaths with civilian ones.

The controversial and powerful defence secretary and brother to the president was testifying before a commission set up to examine the war's final years.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, widely seen as the mastermind of the war victory, gave a robust response to allegations that have dogged the Sri Lankan government and military over the conduct of the campaign – for instance, a report by the thinktank, the International Crisis Group, alleging that their actions killed tens of thousands of civilians.

Rebel resurgence

Mr Rajapaksa rejected this, saying that in fact the army suffered 6,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries in the war's final stages and, he believed, the LTTE sustained as many casualties.

These people did no harm. Their houses were destroyed, their children were killed, their husbands were killed. So – who started terrorism? It was we Mangala Moonesinghe on 1983 riots

"If the army suffered that much of casualties because of the fighting, at least the same amount of casualties you can expect from the LTTE as well," he said.

"I am sure it is much more because the firepower of the government forces is much more."

The critics, he said, were confusing rebel deaths with civilian ones, which the military had sought to minimise.

Speaking calmly, and repeatedly passing the commissioners dossiers of information, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said it was the Tigers who had killed innocent people by shooting at them as they tried to flee.

1983 racial riots

He also denied recent reports that permanent housing for army personnel and their families was being built in northern Sri Lanka – something which Tamil MPs claim is being done to change the area’s ethnic make-up.

	Mr. Rajapaksa repeatedly passed the commissioners dossiers of information

He said the military would continue, in his words, to “dominate the jungles” there and prevent a rebel resurgence.

But at the very end of his submission to the panel, Mr. Rajapaksa indicated that he and the government are still highly suspicious of people in the north who, they allege, may still harbour sympathy for the LTTE.

"And they are still – the worst category is that, who may be still having the same LTTE ideologies and have been brainwashed for so many years," Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told the panel.

Government servants 'brainwashed'

"It can include some of the government servants. So this is another danger that we have seen – people who have not surrendered or [been] identified."

The worst category is that, who may be still having the same LTTE ideologies and have been brainwashed for so many years. It can include some of the government servants Gotabhaya Rajapaksa

Before it heard from the defence secretary, the Commission heard from Mangala Moonesinghe, the former Sri Lankan high commissioner to both Britain and India.

He said he believed “terrorism” in Sri Lankan had not arisen in a vacuum and had been a response to pogroms and killings carried out against Tamil people by organised mobs, sometimes backed by politicians.

"These people did no harm. Their houses were destroyed, their children were killed, their husbands were killed. So – who started terrorism? It was we," Mr. Moonesinghe said.

"And then – gradually naturally the youth went into terrorism, Tamil youth in the north, and in order to suppress that it was harshly brought down. Until the 1983 riots took place, when it took another form," he added.