In a heated discussion in the Sri Lankan parliament on Tuesday both the government and the joint opposition debated extensively the UN Secretary General's reference to UN failings in Rwanda, Srebenica and Sri Lanka.
The debate which centred on whether or not the UN chief had inferred a massacre of the Tamil people had taken place, illustrated agreement on one central point - both the government and the joint opposition did not believe any such massacre took place.
Joint opposition MP, Dinesh Gunawardane, was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying, “There is a wrong impression that there has been an ethnic massacre in Sri Lanka."
“The efforts of the UN and the international community to intervene in Sri Lanka and the government's attitude towards such a move had resulted in Sri Lanka being pushed to a dangerous situation," he added.
MP Keheliya Rambukwell said, “A massacre did take place in Rwanda and Srebrenica but not in Sri Lanka."
In response, Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe flatly rejected the UN chief had compared Rwanda with Sri Lanka.
He said, “I was at the event where Mr. Ki-moon made his speech and he never made a comparison. None of the Joint Opposition MPs who make allegations was present at that seminar."
The deputy foreign affairs minister, Harsha de Silva added, “we cannot help if the opposition MPs who make allegations cannot understand what Mr Ki Moon had meant and it’s not our problem."