Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ruled out implementing federalism in Sri Lanka, as he denied having shown favour to “pro-LTTE groups”. Speaking at a press conference of the United National Front at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute in Colombo Thursday, Mr Wickremesinghe said, "I have no reason to favour pro-LTTE groups”. “I could have become the President in 2005 if I agreed to their conditions," he added. "When I did not agree then there is no reason why I should now." The prime minister went on to rule out implementing federalism in Sri Lanka as demanded by the Tamil...
Photographs Tamil Guardian Farmers in the North protested on Wednesday after it emerged that 90% of new posts for agricultural research assistants in the province went to Sinhala people. Of the 361 available appointments, 332 have been filled by Sinhala people.
High ranking Sinhala Buddhist monks from across the world have criticised the United National Party for endangering "national security", over an election poster in Jaffna which features one of their candidates alongside a map of Tamil Eelam. Speaking at a press conference in Narahenpita in the South of the island, Buddhist monks from the US, Singapore, Australia and India slammed the UNP for allowing the poster to be distributed. The Mahanayake of Singapore and Chief Incumbent of the Bellanwila Rajamaha Vihara in Colombo Dhammarathana Nayaka slammed the incident as a "a serious threat to national security”. “The reconciliation process that was moving forward smoothly in the aftermath of defeat of the LTTE,” claimed the monk. “It is the duty of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to explain to the nation what really is happening and what his party’s position on the issue is,” he said. "There was security in the country before January 8th,” he said, after former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was ousted and Maithripala Sirisena came to power. “Today the country is unstable." The Mahanayake of the US and Chief Incumbent of the Dhammavijaya Vihara in Los Angeles Aggmahapanditha Walpola Piyananda Nayaka agreed with his fellow monks, saying, the “majority of Lankan Sangha community living abroad are worried about the situation at home in the post January 8th period”.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that reports of torture of Tamils under the island’s new government, as detailed by the charity Freedom From Torture in a report today, would be addressed after the UN Human Rights Council session in September. Speaking to Reuters , Mr Wickremesinghe was asked about the latest report by Freedom From Torture, which detailed the ongoing torture of Tamils by Sri Lankan security forces. "All this will be addressed after the final report of the U.N. Human Rights Commission will be made available," said Mr Wickremesinghe.
The United National Party candidate for Jaffna Vijayakala Maheswaran has released a poster with her photo appearing alongside the image of a Tamil Eelam map, as part of her campaign ahead of next week’s parliamentary elections. Earlier she had declared that if elected, Ms Maheswaran would allow Mahatma Gandhi’s 1927 visit to Jaffna to be commemorated in the North-East. The Indian leader visited the peninsula on the 26th and 27th of November, coinciding with important dates in the Eelam Tamil calendar - the leader of the LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran's birthday on the 26th and the national day of remembrance Maaveerar Naal on the 27th of November.
The leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) stated that the pledges contained in the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) manifesto does not reflect the thoughts of the party’s leadership, reports the Sunday Times . Rauf Hakeem said the TNA manifesto was made up of “political postures”, adding “they are not the private convictions of their leaders”. “At polls time they need to go back to their ideological positions,” he added. Mr Hakeem continued to say the southern electorate “should not buy into this” and concluded the TNA “would be practical”. Meanwhile Mr Hakeem said his party was opposed to a merger of the Northern and Eastern province as outlined in the 13th Amendment. “How can it be achieved?” questioned the SLMC leader, stating “we are opposed to the merger”. His comments directly contradict remarks made by the SLMC General Secretary Hasan Ali who said just weeks ago, “We welcome the stance of the Tamil National Alliance in its election manifesto to create a home land of Tamil speaking people, by re-merging the North and East.”
Sri Lanka will need “international scrutiny” and “pressure” to rebuild the damage caused by “40 years of insurgency, civil war and ethnically biased centralisation,” concluded the International Crisis Group in its report on Sri Lanka’s new government. The report listed 4 key themes that would be need to be tackled to see reconciliation and accountability by any new parliament formed in Sri Lanka’s upcoming parliamentary elections. These included delivering on de-militarisation of the North-East, tackling barriers to impunity and accountability, deepening devolution and establishing an...
Sri Lankan police have confirmed that a dead body has been found in the Batticaloa lagoon on Monday. The body was identified as that of a 37 year old male resident of Eravur, according to the Police Media Unit . He has not yet been named. The finding comes after three dead bodies were recovered from the lagoon last month. See our earlier post: Three men found dead in Batticaloa (30 July 2015)
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe assured garment traders that Sri Lanka will regain the GSP+ trade concessions from the European Union, at a meeting at Temple Trees on Tuesday. Mr Wickremesinghe made the assurance as he called on the traders to increase wages for workers once the GSP+ was restored. Earlier this year the prime minster had also pledged that the concessions would be restored after the upcoming UN Human Rights Council session in September, where a report on mass atrocities committed during the final stages of the armed conflict is due to be released. The previous government had blamed Mr Wickremesinghe for the concessions being withdrawn, after the EU stated it was concerned over human rights abuses.
The Federation of National Organisations (FNO) demanded that Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reiterate his stance on whether an international investigation into reports of war crimes would be allowed to take place. The FNO’s Representative of expatriate Sri Lankans Nuwan Bellanthurawa told The Island that the postponement of the release of an OISL report into mass atrocities until September, was part of a strategy to increase international pressure on former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the event he was elected as prime minister later this month. Mr Bellanthurawa went on to state that a leaked document from the United Nations named 47 people, who he described as “war heroes”, as responsible for violations of international humanitarian law, including Mr Rajapaksa. The National Freedom Front's Wimal Weerawansa also warned this week that the United National Party, led by Mr Wickremesinghe, would allow an international war crimes probe to take place. Earlier this year the UNP declared that it would protect Mr Rajapaksa from any potential war crimes probe.