President, a leader committed to peace - Ex-US Congressman
“President Mahinda Rajapaksa is a very committed leader to peace and
it is up to Sri Lanka to reap the peace dividends by accelerating the
reconciliation process,” former US Congressman Rev Dr Walter E Fauntroy
told a news conference yesterday.
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Rev Dr Walter E Fauntroy |
The former US Congressman who was also Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s
personal representative to President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B.
Johnson, said Sri Lanka should also pursue peace through non-violence in
the same manner as Mahathma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and that was the
message that he wanted for Sri Lanka when he met President Mahinda
Rajapaksa at Temple Trees yesterday.
“If this country creates young Gandhis and Mandelas there would not
be relapses in Sri Lanka similar to those of Egypt, Yemen and Libya and
that is what was wanted in this country,” he said.
Dr Fauntroy said that violence was all that the Sri Lankan youth had
seen in the last 30 years and it was up to the government to see that
image is reversed.
“Now that Sri Lanka has achieved peace with the end to the
hostilities, this is the ideal time that the reconciliation process
commences,” he said.
Dr Fauntroy said that he was here to promote food, education,
justice, housing and income for the people of Sri Lanka and asserted
that it was in that backdrop that the reconciliation process could be
ideally taken forward. |
