The leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R Sampanthan, said Tamils must be patient about the militarisation of the Tamil homeland, urging people to wait and see as Sri Lanka's new president had only been in office for one week. Asked by BBC Tamil on Saturday, what the TNA was going to do about the Sri Lankan government's announcement on Friday that there would be no reduction in the numbers of troops deployed across the North-East, Mr Sampanthan replied, "it has not been long since the government came to power." "Only a week has gone by," Mr Sampanthan said, stating that he was aware of the news reports regarding the government's announcement.
The former head of Sri Lanka's army, Sarath Fonseka, will contest parliamentary elections later this year, according to officials from his Democratic Party. Senior party officials are discussing procedures in order to enable Fonseka to become a member of parliament. The party leader was previously blocked from contesting after his failed attempt to unseat former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. General secretary of the Democratic Party, Ananda Manawadu said that Fonseka would definitely be contesting at the upcoming general election, reported Ceylon Today .
Former minister Mervyn Silva has filed a complaint to the CID against Gotabaya and Basil Rajapaksa, over criminal activities, including white van abductions and the killing of a journalist. Mr Silva said former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was behind the notorious white van abductions, which were used to devastating effect, especially against Tamils. “I do not want to take revenge from anyone. They are the ones who took revenge from me. I was not given a proper ministry to work. I came to the CID to complain over all the murders such as Bharatha Laksman Premachandra, Lasantha Wikrametunge and the attacks on several private media institutions. It is Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was behind the white van culture in the country,” he said .
Sri Lanka's prime minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe reassured China's ambassador to the country on Wednesday, that cooperation would continue despite the defeat of the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. "Sri Lanka attaches great importance to developing relations with China, and is willing to further strengthen bilateral pragmatic cooperation in various fields for mutual benefits and win-win results," Mr Wickremasinghe said following his meeting with Ambassador Wu Jianghao, reports China's state news agency Xinhua .
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s central committee today appointed President Maithripala Sirisena as the chairman of the party at a meeting at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute earlier today. The unanimous decision came after former president Mahinda Rajapaksa told the UPFA coalition, of which the SLFP is the main constituent party, that he is prepared to hand over chairmanship to the new president. In a statement, Rajapaksa said he did not want to see the party divided, but would “strongly represent the wishes and aspirations of the more than 5.7 million members of the public”, who voted for...
Sri Lanka had released all Indian fishermen in its custody, a spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. "All free.With release of 15 Indian fishermen today. No more Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan custody. Arrangement being made for early return," the spokesperson, Syed Akbaruddin, tweeted.
The European Union (EU) has suspended all fish imports from Sri Lanka, putting in place a ban that could cost Sri Lanka as much as $200 million. The ban on Sri Lankan imports was announced in October 2014, in response to Sri Lanka failing to deal with illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), a move praised by environmental non-governmental organisations, such as Greenpeace. The EU alone had €74 million of imports in 2013, but Sri Lanka Seafood Association spokesperson Channa Weeratunge estimated that Sri Lanka could stand to lose as much as $200 million.
A spokesperson for Sri Lanka’s army has said no decision has been taken to reduce the number of troops in the military, noting instead that over 20,000 people had been recruited into the armed forces for "development projects". According to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence , when questioned by reporters on plans to reduce the size of the armed forces, army spokesperson Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera responded by saying no such decision had been taken. Instead the brigadier told journalists that the security forces were “greatly involved in many development projects in various parts of the...
Sustained international pressure is needed to ensure that the new Sri Lankan government works towards accountability, justice and reconciliation on the island, said a lecturer in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent, Madurika Rasaratnam, and author of a forthcoming book, Tamils and the Nation: India and Sri Lanka compared . "In broad terms the election merely saw the replacement of one avowed Sinhala nationalist leader with another equally committed to maintaining a unitary and majoritarian Sinhala Buddhist order. It is this dynamic that has fed the ethnic conflict over the past several decades, and continues to drive the militarised repression and exclusion that characterises relations between the state and the Tamils," she writes, in a article published by The Hurst publishers.
The former Norwegian special envoy to Sri Lanka, Erik Solheim, urged Sri Lanka's new president Maithripala Sirisena to resolve the Tamil national question, stating that some issues such as restoring Tamil language rights and removal of military from areas it occupies in the North could begin "right away". "A lot can be done right away — language rights of the Tamils can be restored and the army can be removed from some of the lands it occupies in the north," said Solheim, writing in The Hindu newspaper on Thursday. Stressing "the international community will and should continue to pressure for accountability for the unspeakable atrocities during the war: brutal murders, rapes and killing of innocent civilians", he warned that the "the global human rights community and the Tamil diaspora will keep these issues alive."