Now, military has entered PC polls campaign – Kiriella

Over four years after the war had ended people expected a return to normalcy, but the military had taken over all walks of life, with soldiers now being forced to do the political work of the Rajapaksa regime, the UNP said yesterday.



Senior Vice President of the UNP Lakshman Kiriella MP, addressing a press conference in Colombo, said that the UPFA government was humiliating the war heroes who should be allowed to perform their legal duties.

Security forces personnel had also been asked to sell vegetables and clean drains. Now, they have been forced to put up UPFA posters in the Central and North-Western Provinces, in the run up to the Provincial Council Elections due in September.

The MP pointed out that it would be a matter of time before the military also interfered with the Northern Provincial Council Poll.

The government, he observed, had pledged to the international community, including the United Nations Human Rights Commission, that it would implement the recommendations of its very own Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, which meant free and fair polls would be conducted, but it had already flouted it.

Kiriella said that total disregard for the rule of law would have serious repercussions with Sri Lanka scheduled to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November.

Unless democracy was re-established, it was anybody’s guess as to how many Commonwealth countries would attend the Colombo Summit, he observed.