Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Because the west is funding your stupid gvt to govern the country, not to abduct and kill! You guys even the budhist monks are applaudinbg the abductions and killings! Then they investigate investigate investigate....... never ends!!

Clear example is vincent

no use of his online PHD

Is UN human rights office is prelude to UN Peace Keeping Forces?

Reforms to end Sri Lankan conflict ready next month: FM by P. Parameswaran
Thu Mar 15, 3:52 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Constitutional reforms aimed at ending three decades of ethnic bloodshed in Sri Lanka could be finalized as early as next next month, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said here.

'We are expecting it to be by April, the political process to come up with definite proposals for a political solution -- the constitutional reforms,' he told AFP in an interview in Washington ahead of talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday.

He said that an all-party consultative committee had emerged with several proposed constitutional reforms to be refined into a 'final' plan 'within a few weeks from now,' setting the stage for what could be devolution of power in Sri Lanka.

'These are matters I would be able to impress upon the Secretary of State in terms of our political direction' towards a resolution to Sri Lanka's 35-year-old ethnic conflict, in which 60,000 people have died, Bogollagama said.

He did not say how President Mahinda Rajapakse's administration is going to forge what many consider a difficult consensus among the various political parties on the mechanics of sharing power with the minority Tamils.

Rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been fighting for about three decades for an independent state for the minority Tamil community in the northeast of the majority-Sinhalese island nation.

The United States together with Japan, the European Union and Norway are co-chairs of the Tokyo donors' conference which had tied 4.5 billion dollars of aid to Sri Lanka to progress on a peace settlement.

Asked what would be the basis for a political solution, Bogollagama said, 'devolution as a means towards which we can address the concerns of all communities.'

He pointed out that Colombo was prepared to go beyond the existing constitution to achieve the goal.

There could be 'several forms' under which devolution could be structured, he said citing particularly what is popularly known as the '13th amendment' to the constitution made under an Indo-Sri Lankan accord signed in July 1987.

Bogollagama said if the amendment under which the Sri Lankan government agreed to devolve some authority to the provinces 'fell short' of expectations, 'we have to look at how we can go beyond that.'

'Therefore there is conscious approach by the government of Sri Lanka' to bring about a political solution -- a 'home grown' solution addressing 'all concerns,' he said.

Bogollagama, who took over as foreign minister in January, stressed that the island's peace process was not dead despite an upsurge in fighting, in which more than 4,000 people have also been killed since December 2005.

He also rejected any notion that the Sri Lankan government was aiming for a military solution to the conflict, which continues even though the two sides had agreed to a Norwegian-brokered truce in February 2002.

'We are still prepared to talk with the LTTE,' the minister said.

'We have proposals now to talk about a sustainable peace agenda we are pursuing and the LTTE should be part of that. We want to make LTTE stakeholders in the ultimate resolution,' he said.

Direct peace negotiations stalled in October last year over a key rebel demand that the government reopen a highway that crosses through rebel territory to the besieged army-held Jaffna peninsula.

Bogollagama vehemently denied that the Sri Lankan military was on an offensive against the Tamil Tigers even though senior defence officials clearly said in Colombo this week that the latest military campaign against the guerrillas could go on for another three years.

'We never had a military offensive, just limited engagement sometimes in retaliation to LTTE strikes on our bases and other times to clear certain areas for humanitarian work to continue, for the safety of the people and security,' he said.

'But not to have a operation in terms of ousting the LTTE and in terms of a military engagement because the solution to the problem doesn't lie in a military option but in a constitition process and for that, we need the political process to proceed,' he said.

On persistent reports that Colombo was not happy with Oslo's peacemaking role, Bogollagama likened it to Sri Lanka's popular sport of cricket.

'It's like a game of cricket. If you don't score (runs), the public will not be happy,' he said, adding that the Norwegians could 'score better' as 'ground conditions on the LTTE have improved.'

Bogollagama also rejected calls for a UN human rights monitoring mission to deter and help investigate abuses by both government forces and the Tamil Tigers amid reports of deaths and injuries to hundreds of civilians and the displacement of thousands more in recent months.

There are already many panels investigating the alleged abuses and 'let us see the outcome of these,' he said.

Lets not forgot the beloved govt of Lanka is self serving agent of sinhalese nationalism

Bogollagama, who took over as foreign minister in January, stressed that the island's peace process was not dead despite an upsurge in fighting, in which more than 4,000 people have also been killed since December 2005.

Peace process was not dead despite an upsurge in fighting, in which more than 4,000 people have also been killed