Govt clear about future steps - GL

Rasika SOMARATNE

How the government should be dealing with issues mentioned in the LLRC report has already been explained to the public by Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, when he submitted the report to Parliament last Friday, External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L.Peiris said yesterday.

Referring to a US State Department statement, he said that the said statement had mentioned that the Sri Lankan government ‘had left open’ the issue of accountability in the LLRC report. The statement had gone on to say that the US wanted to see “what they will do’ about the report’s disclosures.

Minister Peiris said that, what the Sri Lankan government would do has been detailed by Minister de Silva in Parliament.

Prof. Peiris quoting further from the State Department statement said that it had urged ‘the Sri Lankan government to not only fulfill all the recommendations of the report as it stands, but also to act on those issues that the report did not cover’.

He described this as an open ended statement. The minister said since there is a reference to what the report ‘did not cover’, the ‘goal post’ or what would be expected of the Sri Lankan State could be shifted from time to time.

The External Affairs Minister also described the US demand for a “detailed road map” on how the government intended in dealing with the findings of the report, at this stage, as unreasonable.

He also said that a US focus in its statement on calling on the government to investigate ‘the final phase of the conflict’ was also intriguing. Why only the final phase and not what happened right throughout the 30 years of conflict, the Minister asked.