Confident MR keen to cruise ahead

Wednesday, 20 August 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Rajapaksa administration making plans for the next five years says President
When posed whether he will retire in 2020 Mahinda responds: “Ask me that in 2020.”
Says “not bothered” about CBK as possible presidential contender
Alleges remote probe highlights Navi Pillay’s bias
Claims to be committed to cause of disappearances

By Dharisha Bastians Brimming with confidence about being re-elected to serve an unprecedented third term in office, President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday shrugged off his political rivals and appeared undeterred by the UN inquiry into allegations of war crimes quietly gathering steam in Geneva. “I will be still be here, I am planning for the next five years,” President Rajapaksa told Colombo-based Foreign Correspondents at Temple Trees yesterday, asked about his chances at the next presidential election. His Government’s vision was targeting the year 2020, President Rajapaksa explained. Asked whether this meant he would retire in 2020, the President quipped: “Ask me that in 2020.”It was the strongest indication yet that the President may declare a snap poll in 2015, in which he will contest a third term in office. President Rajapaksa will become the first Executive President of Sri Lanka to contest three times at a presidential election after his Government passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in September 2010, removing presidential term limits. Queried about the prospect of facing off against his predecessor and former Party Leader Chandrika Kumaratunga in the presidential contest, the President said he was “not bothered” by her possible re-entry into the political fray. “Anyone can contest elections,” he noted dismissively. President Rajapaksa reiterated the Government’s non-cooperation with the UN probe mandated by a Human Rights Council resolution passed in March this year, and insisted that UN investigators would not be permitted to enter Sri Lanka. Asked about UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay’s recent assertion that her investigators did not require to enter Sri Lanka to conduct the inquiry, President Rajapaksa replied: “You can see how biased she is.” “The only people taking this UN inquiry seriously are those who wanted the investigation,” the President added. The UN had no mandate to conduct the probe, he said. “We are against it, we will not accept this,” the President said. However, his Government would not prevent people from testifying before the UN inquiry, the President added. But suspected pro-Government mobs attacked a recent meeting of the families of the disappeared at the Centre for Society and Religion in Maradana, on the grounds that NGOs and the diplomatic community were recording evidence to be put before the UN probe. The protestors later claimed to represent missing people’s families from the south, through an organisation calling itself the Dead and Missing People’s Parents Front. “There was recording equipment found in the room adjoining the meeting hall. Why else would the equipment be there?” External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris told foreign correspondents at yesterday’s breakfast meeting. President Rajapaksa said the disruption of the meeting had nothing to do with the Government. “That was a problem between two groups,” he said. He said he had campaigned against disappearances in 1989-1990 and remained committed to the cause. “When we were campaigning for the disappeared too there were many obstacles thrown in our way,” he recalled. Ministers Peiris and Keheliya Rambukwella, Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, Media Ministry Secretary Charitha Herath and Military Spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya were also present at the briefing.