E/CN.4/1995/91 page 86 7. The individual and collective enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights in Sri Lanka have also been severely affected. The large-scale destruction of public works infrastructure and the administrative mechanism in the north and the east have led to reconstruction costs which continue to be a substantial drain on the Government’s budget. Scarce financial and other resources of the Government are diverted from productive purposes towards defence, reconstruction and welfare. 8. Similarly, the people’s right to work, to food, clothing and housing, to health and education and even the right to freedom from hunger are jeopardized by LTTE’s disruptive activities. The Government has not only to send a continuous supply of humanitarian provisions to the north and the east in order to ensure the well-being of the people of these areas, but has also to enlist the support of local and international NGOs, the International Committee of the Red Cross and relevant United Nations organizations to protect these supplies from LTTE sabotage. The cost of humanitarian provisions to the north and the east amounts to US$ 5 million per month. 9. The acts of violence of LTTE have been perpetrated not only in Sri Lanka, but overseas as well, with similar repercussions on peoples’ rights and freedoms. Armed attacks and assassinations have been carried out in southern India, the most recent being the tragic assassination of the former Prime Minister of India, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. Threats of reprisals on family and relatives in Sri Lanka have been a preferred means of LTTE to extort cash and ’contributions’ from Sri Lankans resident overseas. 10. The LTTE link with drug trafficking is well-documented. Members of LTTE have been apprehended in all parts of the world (particularly in Western European countries, as well as in the United States and Canada) for the possession of drugs in the course of the last 10 years. The money collected in this process is used for the purchase of illicit arms and explosives, thereby posing a grave threat to the security of the society and the peaceable enjoyment of the fundamental human rights. 11. The activities of LTTE in Sri Lanka have therefore severely affected and restricted the enjoyment of the civil and political rights, as well as of the economic, social and cultural rights of all Sri Lankans, whether of Muslim, Tamil or Sinhalese origin. Faced with these constraints, the efforts of the Government of Sri Lanka have been to ensure its obligations relating to the promotion and protection of human rights of all its citizens. However, as recognized in Commission on Human Rights resolution 1994/42, the individual too has ’duties to other individuals and to the community to which he or she belongs’ and ’is under responsibility to strive for the promotion and observance of the rights recognized in the International Covenants on Human Rights’. 12. I would be grateful to you, Sir, for transmitting the contents of this letter to the relevant persons in conformity with paragraph 4 of