Even though President Mahinda Rajapaksa claimed that his government’s relations with India couldn’t be better, the truth was that New Delhi was very unhappy with his government’s refusal to resolve the decades old ethnic issue, the UNP said yesterday. General Secretary of the UNP, Tissa Attanayake addressing a news conference in Colombo, said the Rajapaksa government had refused to implement its pledges with regard to devolution that it had given India and extremist elements within its ranks were creating new problems for the minorities.
President Rajapaksa’s claim that ‘there are no minorities in Sri Lanka and all are equal boiled down to empty rhetoric, MP Attanayake said. A majority of war displaced from the North were yet to be resettled in their original homes, while lands belonging to the Tamils and Muslims were being grabbed by an organised group, which obviously had state backing, he said.
Muslims were also being harassed for practising their religion, Attanayake said, adding that the real motive of a Sinhala extremist group behind the attacks was to create another communal riot.
India may not have taken a decision as yet on the US resolution on accountability and reconciliation stemming from the war in Sri Lanka, which was to be presented at the ongoing UNHRC annual sessions in Geneva, but if the government continued its hide and seek game, the repercussions could be disastrous, he said.
Attanayake said that the failure to implement the key recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission recommendations nearly two years after the report was released would cost the country dear in Geneva.
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