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Ranil’s visit to Europe a tamasha - ex envoy

The Opposition Leader’s visit to Europe at this juncture is uncalled for and irrelevant as the country is saddled with the responsibility of looking after an unprecedented number of 200,000 IDPs needing the cooperation from all the parties,” journalist, media consultant and former Deputy High Commissioner for India S. Piyasena told the Daily News on Friday.

If the Opposition Leader had to discuss the present problem with other countries, he could have done in Colombo just as he took up the problem of the North with Norwegian Minister/peace envoy Erick Solheim and other foreign representatives in 2002,” he said.

The current humanitarian operation involving around 200,000 IDPs is one of the biggest challenges in recent history comparable to the exodus of four million people to Bangladesh in 1971 equal in proportion to the population of Sri Lanka when compared as equal of four million people of India in proportion to India’s population. However the Opposition Leader’s visit at this time could be compared only to a tamasha, he said.

All visiting VIPs meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe could have discussed the matter in Colombo when he met them, Piyasena said.

“Though some European powers are trying to preach to us what to do with war and freedom of press it is quite contrary to what they really did during the second world war.

In January 1940, the British Government imprisoned some elected members of the State Council and journalists on treason charges of acting as adverse to the war effort for supporting a workers’ strike at Mul Oya plantation.

On that occasion journalists imprisoned were, Hemasiri de Silva for six years, D.P. Yasodis for four years, Dr. S. A. Wickramasinghe, Ven. Udakendevela Saranankara Thera and Bennette Silva for two years and a host of other persons for not cooperating with the British Empire, Piyasena said.

However when the pro-LTTE demonstrators blocked the passage to the House of Commons in England had said it was a nuisance but no action was taken against them.

“Even when Speaker of the British House of Commons Michael Martin Sri Lankan Embassies in England and Norway and the Buddhist Vihare in London was attacked by pro-LTTE gangs, no action had been taken against them but Europeans are trying to preach to us about how to run our affairs,” he noted.

During the time of the UNP government, after 1983, terrorists hijacked the liberation struggle of the Tamil people and they came to Colombo and killed Opposition Leader A. Amirthalingam and four other Tamil Parliamentarians.

But the international community hardly protested or expressed their concern about those assassinations, he said.

From 1948 to 1983 there were a lot of differences between Governments and the Tamil politicians on various issues but the clashes were minor or debates between the Tamil politicians and the governments. But this is a very serious war in our country dragged on for over three decades. The Armed Forces are not harassing the Tamil people but rescuing them from the LTTE, he said.

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