Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister described plans to open up the economy to the private sector and lower taxes to raise the island’s export income and set a target of US $50 billion for the island, reports Colombo page . Delivering a keynote address at the Sri Lanka Economic Summit, Ranil Wickremesinghe stressed the importance of achieving economic development by increasing export incomes. Outlining his export plans for after elections, Mr Wickremesinghe said, “After elections we will reach out to USA, India, China, Singapore etc for economic agreements. The government will bring in new legislation...
Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa says he will win an outright majority in the elections later this month, and is hoping to become prime minister. Speaking to the BBC’s Sinhala service, Mr Rajapaksa said he was confident of winning more than half the seats in parliament. "Clearly we will secure 117 seats," he told BBC Sinhala and rejected claims by the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickramasinghe, that the SLFP campaign was in disarray, due to the split between him and President Maithripala Sirisena. Mr Rajapaksa challenged the government to investigate killings and abductions which occurred while he was in power, accusing the prime minister of not doing enough.
Sri Lankan government minister and general secretary of the JHU stated that “federalism will never be to the North” at a public election rally, reports Sri Lanka Mirror . Champika Ranawaka, who is minister of technology and research in Sri Lanka, told the rally at Piliyandala that the Tamil National Alliance proposals for a federal solution would never be considered and instead “the country's unitary status will be taken forward”. “Federalism will only be a pipe-dream,” he added saying the main Tamil political party would never be able to bring about any change with Sri Lanka's parliamentary system. “A mandate at a referendum and a 2/3 parliamentary majority is needed to introduce federalism, and the TNA cannot do that with 10 or 15 seats,” he added.
Thousands of Tamils in the North struggle to regain their seized land from Sri Lanka’s military amidst no indication of demilitarization, said the International Crisis Group (ICG) on Wednesday. The ICG Sri Lanka director Alan Keenan, in an interview with NPR news, said the army was disproportionately deployed in the north of the island. Mr Keenan added , “There is no indication that army plans to downsize or embrace any meaningful reconciliation with Tamil community. Police powers have been once against granted to the military in the north. So the military is once again able to arrest and...
Sri Lanka’s government said the United Nations and the Northern Provincial Council will not be able to deal directly with each other on projects providing assistance to the region. Responding to a statement by UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, who last week said the UN was exploring provisions of assistance at the request of NPC Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, foreign ministry spokesperson Mahishini Colonne said any support must be provided through the government and not through the provinces. “There are no major projects except one where only immediate assistance for the resettled people is provided by the United Nations. According to the normal procedure, it will be done through the Ministry of Resettlement. They do not directly deal with the provincial councils,” Ms. Colonne said.
The United National Party has always stood for a united Sri Lanka and never wanted it to be divided, Plantation Industries Minister Lakshman Kiriella said while presenting the party’s manifesto to leading Buddhist monk Tibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Mananayake. The minister was responding to the monk’s comments that the opposition was accusing the current government of “promoting separate administration to satisfy the minorities”, The Island reported. Mr Kiriella said that the UNP and the UNP-led United National Front (UNF) had assured communal harmony in a united Sri Lanka. Sinhala...
The International Truth & Justice project Sri Lanka says it will only collaborate with the government of Sri Lanka, on investigating evidence of human rights abuses, once a credible and independent mechanism, trusted by the victims, is established. The government responded to the latest ITJP report , which detailed ongoing cases of torture and sexual violence, by saying it could not investigate any of the cases detailed as the ITJP had not shared information. "The Sri Lankan government has sufficient information to begin numerous reports of abduction, torutre and sexual violence by its security forces, should it so wish," the ITJP said in a statement released today. "The ITJP looks forward to colloaborating with the Government of Sri Lanka when it has established a credible independent mechanism that is trusted by the victims to address the long-standing international crimes and violations that have been committed against it own citizens and includes witness protection."
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister said that Colombo would address issues raised by the UN investigation into Sri Lanka through a domestic process. Speaking to the Gulf Times , Mr Wickremesinghe said, “People want to know if our judiciary is working. And that is a valid question which we ourselves asked at the last presidential election (in January) and the people’s resounding answer was ‘no’” Without providing further details on his plan to deal with the findings of the UN investigation into mass atrocities, Sri Lanka’s prime minister said, “We will put together a judicial mechanism. That will be...
A domestic inquiry into violations of international humanitrain law would be the “final insult” to Tamil victims of the armed conflict, said film maker Callum Macrae, the director of the documentary, 'No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka'. Writing in the August issue of Vice Magazine, Mr Macrae outlined the massacres that occurred during the final stages of the armed conflict in 2009, including the killings of Tamil television reporter Isaipriyai and the 12-year old son of the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. “One UN report concluded that as many as 40,000 Tamils may have died, mostly as a result of government shelling,” said Mr Macrae. “A subsequent UN report suggested the true figure could even reach 70,000.” “But while the new government has made promises to mount a domestic inquiry into the crimes, they have also promoted or reinstated military officers accused of direct or command responsibility for those crimes,” he added. He went on to say, “For the traumatized Tamils, such a domestic process would be the final insult—nothing less than victor's justice over a beaten people. Meanwhile, a report ordered by the UN Human Rights Council has been delayed until September, and some fear that the call for an international judicial reckoning is weakening. Although the evidence is now here for all the world to see, the search for justice is far from over.”
The Jaffna Business Forum urged the Sri Lankan government to facilitate the Tamil diaspora investing in the North, when drafting the 2016 budget. Meeting on Tuesday to put forward proposals for the economic development of the North, the forum members said that the government should prioritise helping the many Tamil business people who had fled the North-East due to the armed conflict, but remained keen to invest and re-establish their business.