GL invites legislators to visit SL
External Affairs Minister Prof G L Peiris, took part in a series of
Capitol Hill meetings on Wednesday on the second of his four-day
official visit to Washington, discussing with members of the House of
Representatives Sri Lanka’s progress in post-conflict reconciliation and
development, as well as reform measures that are designed to ensure
lasting peace.
Prof Peiris first met with Representatives Chris Van Hollen (Democrat
- Maryland) and Robert Aderholt (Republican - Alabama), to discuss
recommendations made in late 2011 by the Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which examined Sri Lanka’s conflict
against terrorism, which was successfully concluded three years ago.
Minister Peiris explained that the government has developed a
mechanism for implementation of recommendations accepted by the
government, which will be directed out of the office of Sri Lanka’s
presidential secretariat.
During the talks, Minister Peiris also noted that President Mahinda
Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe met on Monday to
discuss matters related to multi-party participation in a Parliamentary
Select Committee.
The committee will consider constitutional amendments, Minister
Peiris said, and it was important to the government that minority
parties in Parliament take part in that process which should be all
inclusive.
Both Van Hollen and Aderholt are co-chairs of the Sri Lanka caucus in
the House of Representatives. Van Hollen’s father once served as US
ambassador to Sri Lanka.
Prof Peiris also briefed the two congressmen on Sri Lanka’s
trilingual language initiative – a programme to urge Sri Lankans to
learn Sinhala, Tamil and English – to foster better understanding among
all Sri Lankans. The government, he said, has also established a
national database to aid people whose relatives had gone missing during
the conflict.
Additionally, the minister held a meeting with Representatives Heath
Shuler (Democrat – North Carolina), Ben Chandler (Democrat – Kentucky)
and Jack Kingston (Republican – Georgia).
In yet another Capitol Hill meeting, Prof. Peiris briefed members of
the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, including the
committee’s Democratic Party ranking member, Rep. Howard Berman
(Democrat – California), Steve Chabot (Republican – Ohio), chairman of
the committee’s Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee, and Rep. Ed
Royce (Republican – California), chairman of the committee’s Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee.
There was an in-depth discussion of current issues, in which the
American legislators showed keen interest.
Committee members commended Sri Lanka on its reconciliation and
development progress since the May 19, 2009 conclusion of the conflict
against the terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
They also expressed enthusiasm for continued cooperation between the
United States and Sri Lanka, and inquired about Sri Lanka’s plans to
implement the LLRC’s recommendations.
Rep Royce stated that he was specifically concerned about
post-conflict international money laundering as “vexing and problematic
for future.” Solving that problem, he said, was “important for long term
stability.Ó Prof. Peiris catalogued the progress made in Sri Lanka since
the conflict, including the resettlement of displaced persons in the
North, the investment in infrastructure there, the revitalization of the
agricultural and fisheries industries in former conflict zones and the
release of more than 11,600 former LTTE militants following a program of
job and education training.
He noted that there are government controls to police money
laundering, and that the government of President Rajapaksa places a high
priority on the reconciliation process.
He also discussed the strength of Sri Lanka’s relationship with the
US with regard to transnational security, the integrity of sea lanes and
international navigation.
Land ownership and possession issues, he said, remain a complex
challenge. The LTTE conducted a broad campaign of ethnic cleansing in
Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka over many years, displacing land owners
and giving that land to supporters.
Now, Prof. Peiris said, with the return of normalcy, there is a need
for a coherent structure to address the issues connected with land.
On Wednesday afternoon Minister Peiris took part in a round-table
discussion on Sri Lanka and South Asia that was co-hosted by two
premiere Washington think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute and
the Heritage Foundation. |