Lankan PM promises Tamils more autonomy

FE Team | Published: January 21, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

COLOMBO, Jan 20 (agencies): Sri Lanka's new government pledged Tuesday to devolve power to the country's Tamil minority, in a step towards national reconciliation six years after a controversial military offensive crushed a separatist rebellion.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his first address to parliament since taking office, said lawmakers needed to bring a political conclusion to the conflict between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels that ended in 2009.
Critics say the previous regime failed to deal with the ethnic divisions that led to conflict on the island, whose Sinhalese majority has traditionally dominated positions of power.
Wickremesinghe said his government would revive a 1987 constitutional amendment that promised a de facto federal arrangement for the island's Tamil-dominated northern and eastern regions.
"We will implement the 13th amendment within a unitary state," said Wickremesinghe.
Successive governments failed to implement the controversial 13th amendment due to pressure from the Sinhalese population, who saw it as a sell-out to the minority community.
The country's main Tamil political party, the Tamil National Alliance, has distanced itself from demands for a separate homeland and said it accepts power-sharing.
Meanwhile:  Sri Lankan police Tuesday seized weapons from a conference centre visited by the pope during his visit to the island after receiving a tip-off that the former president's family allowed arms to be stored there.
Police said the family of Mahinda Rajapakse had allowed a private security firm to keep the weapons at the high-security complex in central Colombo where the pope met leaders of other faiths last week.
They received complaints that the weapons, which were imported by the government, had been used to intimidate political rivals in the run-up to elections earlier this month in which Rajapakse lost power.
Another report adds: Sri Lanka's main ethnic Tamil political party has called on the new government to resolve the country's longstanding ethnic conflict, which led to a quarter-century civil war.
 The leader of the Tamil National Alliance, Rajavarothayam Sampanthan, told Parliament on Tuesday that the failure to resolve the issue has caused many of the nation's ills. It was Parliament's first session since President Maithripala Sirisena won election on Jan. 8.