Ex-Lankan prez to head task force for reconciliation of Tamils

Colombo, March 26

Former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga will head a special presidential task force to identify urgent reconciliation needs of the minority Tamil community, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Thursday.

"We are focused in achieving communal and religious harmony," Wickremesinghe said.

The new government has set up a dedicated office for reconciliation under the Chair of 69-year-old Kumaratunga, the country's first woman president.

The Presidential Task Force on Reconciliation (PTFR) would identify urgent reconciliation needs that require immediate solutions. The PTFR would also consider proposals from citizens for the purpose.

Kumaratunga was the fifth President of Sri Lanka, who served from 1994 to 2005. In November last year Kumaratunga formally announced her return to active politics.

The Tamil Tigers were engaged in an "armed conflict" with Sri Lankan government forces for nearly three decades, but were militarily defeated in 2009. The conflict killed at least 100,000 people, mostly Tamils.

India has been pressing Sri Lanka to take more steps to ensure reconciliation with Tamils.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Sri Lanka, he had urged the Sri Lankan government to ensure early and full implementation of the 13th Amendment, a 1987 constitutional provision on greater autonomy and go beyond it in the reconciliation process.

"We believe that early and full implementation of the 13th Amendment and going beyond it would contribute to this process," Modi had said.

The Sri Lankan Prime Minister said that the next goal of the government is to restore financial discipline.

Wickremesinghe said that new institutions have already been established to cope with the issues.

The 19th constitutional amendment has already been presented in parliament as promised during the Presidential election.

The amendment tabled on Tuesday seeks to prune powers of the presidency in order to strengthen parliamentary democracy.

"We have court cases challenging the amendment. We hope that we will not have to hold a referendum for the amendment.

We were careful in drafting in such a way that it will not be required for the amendment be subject to a referendum," the Prime Minister said.

Responding to criticism that his government had gone slow in bringing the members of the previous Mahinda Rajapaksa administration to book for alleged corruption and misdeeds, Wickremesinghe said the government could only bring them before the court of law to charge them.

"We can't arrest people under state of emergency," Wickremesinghe said.

The new government has referred allegations of corruption against the Rajapaksa government to the anti-graft commission.

But the larger electorate who backed Sirisena's pledge to eradicate corruption remains dissatisfied that pledges have not turned in to action. — PTI