JOIN USDevolution, polls in Tamil areas assured
President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave the assurance to India’s National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who reached Colombo on a two-day visit Wednesday. As a part of this promise, the Sri Lankan government would hold elections in the areas from where the LTTE has been ejected.
They also met presidential adviser Basil Rajapaksa, secretary to the president Lalith Weeratunga and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. They interacted with various political parties in Sri Lanka.
Colombo assured the visiting Indian special envoys that it would implement a law for devolving powers to the Tamil-dominated territories as both the countries agreed on the need for a lasting solution to the ethnic conflict. The assurance figured in a joint statement issued after Narayanan and Menon met Rajapaksa here, three days after LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was eliminated and the country was declared free of terrorism.
Sri Lanka and India agreed that with the end of the military operations the time was opportune for the countries to focus on issues such as relief, rehabilitation, resettlement and reconciliation, besides finding a permanent political solution in a country ravaged by civil war. The issue of re-settlement of civilians, estimated by the UN to be around 265,000, figured prominently in the discussions.
After the meeting with Rajapaksa, Menon told reporters that Sri Lanka appeared willing to go beyond the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord, which for the first time set up a devolution plan for the ethnically-divided nation.
“Our discussions were within the framework of the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace agreement. The President is not only willing to implement the 13th Amendment (set up under the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardene accord) but is willing to go the extra mile,” he said.
Rajapaksa underlined his resolve to find a lasting political settlement and indicated that Colombo will proceed with the implementation of the 13th amendment to the constitution that provides for devolution of powers to the provinces within a united Sri Lanka.
He also indicated that his government intended to begin “a broader dialogue with all parties including the Tamil parties in the new circumstances for further enhancement of political arrangements to bring about lasting peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka”.
In New Delhi, the Ministry of External Affairs said that “both sides emphasised the urgent need to resettle the IDPs (internally displaced people) in their villages and towns of habitation and to provide to them necessary basic and civic infrastructure as well as means of livelihood to resume their normal lives at the earliest possible”.
Sri Lanka conveyed its intention to dismantle the relief camps at the earliest and outlined a 180-day plan to resettle the bulk of IDPs to their original places of habitation. India, on its part, pledged to “to provide all possible assistance in the implementation of such a plan in areas such as de-mining, provision of civil infrastructure and re-construction of houses.”
IANS & PTI