Sri Lankan Military spokesperson Ruwan Wanigasuriya has said that unless called upon by the police, there are no plans for the army to be directly involved in security at the Northern Provincial Council polls.
Wanigasuriya told the Sunday Leader:
“Sri Lanka defeated the armed terrorists in the year 2009, but the separatist ideology is still alive both here and abroad. There are several organisations overtly propagating the separatist ideology and carrying out activities aimed at creating a separate state in Sri Lanka and they will try to do everything possible to reignite conflict in the North."
"Such reigniting of conflict will not help the democratisation process of the North. Therefore the military’s presence in the North will be helpful to ensure that peace and stability remains so that civil authorities can conduct the elections and politicians can conduct their political campaigns in a free and fair manner,”
“We will not provide security or be connected with any of the activities pertaining to the elections unless the Police make a request from any of the three armed forces like anywhere else in the country. Therefore the need to confine the security forces to barracks does not arise,”
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