• December 28, 2011

  • By R. Bhagwan Singh

      Mahinda Rajapaksa

      Mahinda Rajapaksa

      Brushing aside the criticism that he is nowhere near delivering a political solution even 30 months after ending the Eelam war, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has blamed Tamils, within the country and outside, for the delay by refusing to participate in the consultative process authored by him.

      “The parliamentary select committee [PSC] is a good approach to what has been a vexed problem. Its members are legislators and their proposals could find wider acceptance,” he said in an interview at his Temple Tree residence in Colombo.

      “It is important that TNA [Tamil National Alliance] participates in PSC with an honest intention of finding a political solution, but they are not nominating members. Sampanthan [TNA leader] seems scared of somebody. Now they are going to America complaining we are not doing this or that,” Mr Rajapaksa said.

      He said TNA was steered by the LTTE in the Prabhakaran era and now by the Diaspora, which mostly comprised second- and third-generation Tamils.

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  • Read full interview

  • ‘For Lanka, India comes first’

      They were worried that if a political solution emerged in Sri Lanka, their host countries would send them back home, he said, adding, “There is no point blaming me, it’s the Tamil parties that are delaying solution.”

      Asked if he was not leaning a bit too much toward China for India’s comfort, Mr Rajapaksa said all the mega infrastructure projects, such as Hambantota Port and Colombo Port extension, were first offered to India but Delhi did not respond.

      Promising action on the report of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recently presented to Parliament, he said LLRC had concluded that the security forces did not deliberately target civilians in the final phase of the war.

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      Nathan 28/12/2011 – 07:58am

      This is nothing but absolute non-sense and lies by MR, "They were worried that if a political solution emerged in Sri Lanka, their host countries would send them back home, he said, adding, “There is no point blaming me, it’s the Tamil parties that are delaying solution.”

      SL since independence has been surviving on lies and excuses dodging a reasonable solution and MR is not an exception. If they solve the problem then the Sinhala politicians have no excuses to continue in power.

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    Raj 28/12/2011 – 06:09am

    SL President is quite right, it is Tamil Parties still having separatist agenda should take responsibility for delay in finding political sulution, further western countries are using this issue

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