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TNA MP responds to Gotabaya's remarks

Responding to comments made by Sri Lankan defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, TNA MP Suresh Premachandran has stated that the government is in the midst of changing the demographics of the Northern Province.

Commenting that the government has an agenda in place, the parliamentarian said,

“The growing number of Buddhist temples in the area, the militarization of the north and the fact that there are new Sinhalese settlements in many areas of the North shows what the Defence Secretary wants to do is to change the demographic patterns of the Northern province”.

He further stated,

“The most recent census revealed that out of the 954,000 residents in the North 900,000 are Tamils and 23,000 Sinhalese, so what is the Defence Secretary trying to say? Almost all the census carried out by the governments, have revealed this demographic pattern. Is he saying that this is not true?” 

See the report from the Daily Mirror here.

In an interview with the BBC earlier this week, Gotabaya Rajapakse asserted that the North could not be viewed as a predominantly Tamil area.

See our earlier post: Gotabaya talks strategy (28 May 2012)

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