‘Rebels still seek to divide nation’

SIRISENA WARNS OF SEPARATIST THREAT TO SRI LANKA

SRI LANKA’S president last Saturday (19) warned that Tamil extremists were regrouping abroad in order to revive their demand to divide the island nation, nine years after the end of its decades-long ethnic war.

Maithripala Sirisena said government forces had failed to quash the Tamil rebels’ separatism, al­though they were militarily conquered by May 2009 following a no-holds-barred offensive.

“We have defeated terrorism of the LTTE (Libera­tion Tigers of Tamil Eelam), but we have not been able to defeat their ideology,” Sirisena said.

At a ceremony to mark the ninth anniversary of the end of the war, Sirisena said Tamil extremists abroad were still hoping to establish an independent home­land in Sri Lanka.

“They are very active abroad. They protested when I visited London last month,” Sirisena said, referring to his participation at the Commonwealth summit.

There has been no violence blamed on Tamil re­bels since their top leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was shot dead on May 18, 2009, but pro-rebel activ­ists abroad are known to have staged frequent anti- Sri Lankan protests.

Sirisena came to power in January 2015 on the back of strong support from the minority Tamil com­munity, after pledging reparations for war victims and accountability for rights abuses.

International rights groups have said that at least 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed by government forces under the command of former president Ma­hinda Rajapaksa in the final months of the war.

Sirisena said there were no reliable figures for ci­vilian casualties, but said the total number of Sri Lankans killed could be about 100,000. Official re­cords showed that 28,708 security personnel were killed while another 40,107 were wounded, he said.

The president has relaxed restrictions on the for­mer war zones in the island’s north and east, and re­leased much of the military-occupied land back to Tamil owners.

However, he is yet to deliver on a promise to grant greater political autonomy to Tamils and set up a mechanism to probe what the UN has said were credible allegations of war crimes.

His latest remarks came a week after Sri Lanka’s army chief announced forming a special unit to de­fend itself against allegations of grave rights abuses during the final stages of the ethnic war.

Army chief Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanay­ake has distanced the military from the previous government’s claim that no civilians died, and ac­knowledged there may have been individual excess­es, but there have been no prosecutions. (AFP)