Category: Breaking News

The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) politburo is scheduled to meet today (29) to take the final decision regarding whether or not to field an SLPP candidate for the Presidential Election to be held on 21 September.

When contacted by The Daily Morning yesterday (28), SLPP General Secretary and Parliamentarian Sagara Kariyawasam said that the politburo would meet today. “We (SLPP) are yet to decide on a candidate for the Presidential Election. There are various rumours going around, but we will make the final decision at the politburo meeting.”

The Daily Morning also asked him about media reports that quoted former President and SLPP Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa of having said that they would support incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe if the Party decides. Kariyawasam, in response, said: “It is not true. Such reports have been planted by certain SLPP members who are loyal to the President.”

With the Presidential Election scheduled in September, opinions within the SLPP are divided. Some SLPP members have been expressing a willingness to support the SLPP-backed current President and United National Party Leader Wickremesinghe, while the others have expressed the view that the SLPP should field a separate candidate. There have been predictions that Government MP and businessman Dhammika Perera will be the SLPP’s Presidential candidate.

MP Namal Rajapaksa, who was unanimously elected as the SLPP’s national organiser in March, last week disputed the claim that the majority of their parliamentary group backed Ranil Wickremesinghe’s candidature at the forthcoming Presidential Election. He accused Wickremesinghe of causing rifts within the SLPP and stated that some in the party did not wish to back the presidential candidacy.

Several leading political parties have already declared their Presidential candidates. Among them are; Wickremesinghe, Opposition and SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa, and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-led National People’s Power Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake. In addition, incumbent Minister of Justice, Prison Affairs and Constitutional Reforms, Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe and Opposition MP, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka have also declared their candidacy for the Presidential Election.

“Selvaraja Yogachandran (TELO), popularly known as Kuttmuni, a nominated member of the Sri Lankan parliament who was one of the 52 prisoners killed in the maximum security Wellikade prison in Colombo two weeks ago, was forced to kneel in his cell, (where he was under solitary confinement), by his assailants and ordered to pray to them. When he refused, his tormentors taunted him about his last wish, when he was sentenced to death. (He had willed that his eyes be donated to someone so that at least that person would see an independent Tamil Eelam.) The assailants then gouged his eyes. He was then stabbed to death and his testicles were wrenched from his body. That was confirmed by one of the doctors who had conducted the post-mortem on the first group of 35 prisoners. According to S.A David,[iii] the thirty-five Tamils were then heaped in front of the statue of Gautama Buddha in the yard of the Welikade prison and when some yet alive raised their heads they were clubbed to death.The second round of killings on July 27 was lead by Sepala Ekanaike, undergoing life imprisonment for the hijacking of an Alitalia plane on its flight from Delhi to Bangkok a year previously. Sinhalese prisoners convicted of murder, rape and burglary charges were handpicked by the warders, who after plying them with liquor, let them loose on the remaining Tamil political prisoners. Seventeen prisoners were killed on this occasion.

‘There is no God-given law that an island shall support just a single state, as examples round the world, both happy and unhappy demonstrate: Borneo, New Guinea, Tierra del Fuego, Ireland. If the island of Sri Lanka is to remain a single democratic state, the rights of its minorities will have to be restored and entrenched.”

But Cabinet Minister Gamini Dissanayake who was also President of the UNP controlled Lanka Jathika Estate Workers Union with a membership among plantation Tamils saw the situation in a different light. He put it bluntly to his Tamil members and without ceremony in a widely reported speech on 5 September 1983:

”Who attacked you? Sinhalese. Who protected you? Sinhalese. It is we who can attack and protect you. They are bringing an army from India. It will take 14 hours to come from India. In 14 minutes, the blood of every Tamil in the country can be sacrificed to the land by us. It is not written on anyone’s forehead that he is an Indian or a Jaffna Tamil, a Batticaloa Tamil or upcountry Tamil, Hindu Tamil or Christian Tamil. All are Tamils.” .

”If living together is so hard, what about a separate state in the north for the Tamils? They have as good a claim to a nation of their own as most members of the United Nations. But as always it is a question of power, and in Sri Lanka the Sinhalese have the power. Do they also have the wisdom to see that the Tamil minority is treated in a way that justifies its retention within a unitary state?”

“The matters presented here in ‘Black July 1983: the Charge is Genocide’ constitute, at the lowest, prima facie evidence, sufficient to warrant an indictment for genocide against the Sri Lanka authorities for the crimes committed against the Tamil people in June, July and August 1983.

Paul Sieghart Q.C. in his  Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists and its British Section, Justice, March 1984, concluded:   “Clearly this was not a spontaneous upsurge of communal hatred among the Sinhala people.. It was a series of deliberate acts, executed in accordance with a concerted plan, conceived and organised well in advance. But who were the planners?… Communal riots in which Tamils are killed, maimed, robbed and rendered homeless are no longer isolated episodes; they are beginning to become a pernicious habit.” [see 1956, 1958, 1961, 1974 and 1977]

The International Commission of Jurists Review declared in December 1983 – “Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, acts of murder committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such are considered as acts of genocide. The evidence points clearly to the conclusion that the violence of the Sinhala rioters on the Tamils (in June/July/August 1983) amounted to acts of genocide.”

While welcoming the announcement of the Presidential election, the United States said they look forward to free and fair elections that empower Sri Lankan citizens to determine their future.

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Jullie Chung said in a post on X “We welcome the Election Commission announcement of the September 21 Presidential election, affirming Sri Lanka’s longstanding commitment to democracy. We look forward to free and fair elections that empower Sri Lankan citizens to determine their future.”