Thursday, 19 March 2015 00:14
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The Government will review the proscription of 16 Tamil organisations and over 400 individuals by the previous Government.
Minister Samaraweera, drawing the attention of the House to the ban, said the previous Government of Mahinda Rajapaksa banned Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups and individuals under UN Security Council Resolution 1373 for their alleged links to the LTTE.
He said that the Government took that measure to “build up hysteria about the LTTE regrouping” in the run-up to the presidential election.
“However, most of the organisations listed may have merely been vocal proponents of Tamil rights. There was hardly any tangible evidence to link them to the LTTE. Some of the individuals listed have even been dead for some time,” Minister Samaraweera told Parliament.
Sri Lanka on 1 April 2014 signed the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, which sets out strategies to combat terrorism and control terrorist financing.
With the signing of Resolution 1373, the previous Government banned the Tamil Tiger terrorist organisation, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and 15 other Tamil diaspora groups that are alleged to have terror links and be involved with reviving the terrorist movement in the country.
“Reviewing this list of individuals and entities is an important exercise at this juncture when the Government of President Maithripala Sirisena is seriously committed to expedite the reconciliation process,” the Minister pointed out.
“In doing so, the Sri Lankan Diaspora, be they Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim, has an extremely important role to play not only in taking the reconciliation process forward but in taking Sri Lanka forward as a nation. Some of the best world-class doctors, scientists, lawyers and other professionals who our nation can be proud of as Sri Lankans make up this diaspora and we must enable them to take part in our journey to make Sri Lanka a truly multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual democracy,” Samaraweera said.
