ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Dec 20, Colombo: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa says the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the major Tamil party of the country needs to move away from the war mentality of the Tamil Tiger terrorist group LTTE.
Addressing the media personnel today at the Temple Trees, the President said instead, the TNA must appear on behalf of the needs of people they are representing in the country and not on the requirements of pro-LTTE migrant groups.
Accusing the Tamil party of working in conformity with the wishes and requirements of LTTE loyalists in the world, the President denounced the TNA's call for an international inquiry against the country as the most serious treacherous act and harm they were doing for the country and for the Tamil people.
President Rajapaksa emphasized that the government will not grant police powers to provincial councils as sought by the TNA and said the arguments presented by the Ceylon Workers Leader and Minister Armugam Thondaman on problems that could arise due to provision of police powers to the provincial councils are reasonable.
He said the government has never engaged in a dispute with the TNA, but the party was participating in talks with the goals of the LTTE in mind. He urged the TNA to make efforts for a political solution instead of making undue political efforts for the world to unnecessarily interfere in Sri Lanka.
"The Eelam dream is still reigning in them. What the Tamil Alliance should do is to nominate representatives to the Select Committee for a political solution," the President said.
The President also noted that the government has recruited Tamil speaking citizens to the police. Interviews are presently being conducted to recruit another batch of Tamil citizens to the police service.
TNA wants accountability mechanism for Sri Lanka
By R. K. Radhakrishnan
TheHindu.com
December 19, 2011
Calling upon the international community to establish a “mechanism for accountability” to bring to book the perpetrators of war crimes during the last stages of the Eelam War that ended in May 2009, the Tamil National Alliance on Monday said the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission report “categorically fails to effectively and meaningfully deal with issues of accountability”.
Recalling that many Tamil civilians, direct victims of the war, deposed before the LLRC, TNA leader R.Sampanthan said “the findings of the LLRC offend the dignity of these victims”.
The TNA insisted that the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Tamil Tigers and the government forces needed to be fully investigated. The U.N. Panel of Experts which investigated the last stages of the war had concluded that the LTTE had deliberately targeted civilians and used them as human shields, among other violations. The allegations against the Sri Lanka government include deliberately underestimating civilian numbers in the Vanni in order to deprive them of food and medical supplies, deliberately or recklessly endangering the lives of civilians in No-Fire Zones, targeting civilian objects including hospitals, and executing or causing the disappearance of those who had surrendered.
“The LLRC concludes that, on these issues, the government is not responsible. Instead, it shifts blame onto individual soldiers and surmises that any violations that may have been committed were merely isolated incidents. For example, large numbers of disappearances that resulted from the surrender of unarmed persons to government forces have been cynically dismissed as isolated incidents perpetrated ‘by a few'. The LLRC unjustifiably rules out the possibility that these violations were systematic,” said Mr. Sampanthan.
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