Defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa urged the government to abandon the ceasefire agreement in December 2007, and on 2 January 2008, the Sri Lankan government officially did so. Between February 2002 to May 2007, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission had documented 3,830 ceasefire violations by the LTTE versus 351 by the security forces. From May 2007, the SLMM ceased making determinations on ceasefire violations. Thus the government stated there was no need for a ceasefire any more. Several donor countries expressed their disappointment at the Sri Lankan government's withdrawal. The LTTE formally responded that since the government had unilaterally withdrawn from the ceasefire agreement without any justification and that they were prepared to continue to honour the agreement, the international community ought to immediately remove the bans it had placed on the LTTE.