I was born to the X- Generation, since leaving school in 1983 never saw a future in my country. The conflict in Sri Lanka dominated our lives for the last 30 years. The continuation of this conflict is of no use to anybody. The people of Sri Lanka will be overwhelmed to see an end to this misery and seeing their lives return to normalcy. So countries like USA, UK and France should support to instill peace in our country, and the best way is to support the democratically elected government to establish that responsibility.
It will give enormous opportunity for the Sinhala, Tamil and other communities: to send their children to school without fear, to have a decent environment to live and most of all to end the anguish in every man and woman who has gone through enormous suffering.
As the International community, your objective should be to promote peace and stability around the world. The Sri Lankan government has maintained a strong and steady focus on ending the conflict to bring stability to our lives, but the western powers and media have trodden back and forth on this issue. That has certainly not helped anybody. Powerful media like yourself – CNN should take a strong and consistent stand and support what is right by every human being in the world, that is THE RIGHT TO LIVE WITHOUT TERROR. Whether it’s in USA, UK, France, Afghanistan, Iraq or Sri Lanka, that should be your goal.
Regards
amith
Sri Lanka officials call for unity
Sri Lankan officials have called for political compromise to unify the country following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers and the apparent death of the group's leader. Despite the government's declaration of victory, security forces were on high alert on Wednesday as the nation held a public holiday to mark the military victory. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the opposition leader, whom the government has criticised for his conciliatory approach towards the Tamils, called for national reconciliation. "We have to have a discussion among ourselves, among the political leaders who represent the communities, and come up with a new Sri Lankan identity," he said from Brussels.
About 265,000 ethnic Tamils were displaced in the military's recent offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, and many of them have been sent to overcrowded camps in the country's north. Under international pressure to reach out to the Tamil minority, Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka's president, vowed that a political solution to the country's ethnic divisions would be found. "All should live with equal rights. They should live without any fear or doubt," he said in his victory speech on Tuesday. "Let us all be united." 'Return and rebuild' Rajapaksa called upon Sri Lankans, especially Tamils who fled the country, to return and help it rebuild. "There are no minority communities in this country. There are only two communities, one that loves this country and another that does not," he said.
"We are a government that defeated terrorism at a time when others told us that it was not possible," Rajapakse said in a nationally televised address to parliament. "The writ of the state now runs across every inch of our territory." As he spoke, state television broadcast images of what it said was the body of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE chief. The video showed the upper section of a corpse which was dressed in camouflage fatigues. The back of the head, which was resting on a bloodstained newspaper, appeared to be missing. The face was intact, with the eyes wide open, and bore a clear resemblance to Prabhakaran. Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the international spokesman for the LTTE, had earlier insisted that Prabhakaran was "alive and well". Civilians killed The government's victory was overshadowed by what the United Nations said was the high cost of innocent lives. The UN and human rights groups have partly blamed indiscriminate shelling by the military for causing heavy civilian casualties, while accusing the rebels of using tens of thousands of people as a In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists called for the release of three Sri Lankan doctors who treated wounded civilians in the country's war zone and were detained on accusations they gave false information about the number of casualties to the media.
The European Union called for an independent inquiry into alleged human-rights violations, while the International Committee of the Red Cross complained it was unable to reach the wounded in the northeastern conflict zone even after victory was declared. And Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, who is due to visit Sri Lanka at the end of the week, said in Geneva that any serious allegations of war crimes "should be properly investigated". "I remain concerned about the welfare and safety of the civilian population," he said on Tuesday. The UN's main rights body is to hold a special session on Sri Lanka next week. |
