Foreign powers exerting ‘relentless pressure’ on Lanka’s forward march: GL
Tuesday, 19 August 2014 02:27
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The Government yesterday reiterated its strong opposition to the UN-led investigation on Sri Lanka and international pressure to address reconciliation and accountability, during the inaugural session of the Defence Seminar 2014.
Referring to the UN probe as a ‘travesty of justice,’ Minister of External Affairs G.L. Peiris said international pressure was not only unhelpful but harmful to the country.
He accused certain foreign powers of exerting ‘relentless pressure’ on Sri Lanka’s forward march post-war. The Government had no issues with the sections of the UN resolution passed in March 2014 which called for the strengthening of domestic mechanisms to address reconciliation, the Minister noted.
“Because of the intensity of this pressure there is a disincentive to engage in earnest in a domestic process.
Because of the conviction that far more is forthcoming by the application of pressure at an international level,” he said.
He stated that the optics of engagement in a local process will take “the wind out of the sails” of the international process and that is the real reason there is reluctance or hesitation to engage in the local process. “And that is why this international pressure is not only not helpful, but is absolutely harmful.”
“All these do-gooders, these Good Samaritans who have lessons to deliver to this country, forgetting far too often they do not live up to their own lessons and their own precepts,” the Minister charged.
He said that Sri Lanka had a solid cultural foundation and a tradition protected and nurtured and developed over the centuries.
Several Government officials addressed the Defence Seminar 2014 which commenced at the Galadari Hotel in Colombo yesterday, including Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal and Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera.
This year’s seminar was titled ‘Defining the Nation’s Success: A Critical Examination of the Ascension of Sri Lanka’.
