Will resolve problems of Tamils: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe

Colombo, October 31

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe said he was hopeful of resolving the problems faced by ethnic Tamils in the country, as he announced the appointment of a committee to find ways to integrate the Indian-origin workers in the plantation sector into the society.

Wickremesinghe’s remarks came on Sunday during an event in Colombo where he received a consignment of medicine donated by the Union Territory of Puducherry at the request of Ceylon Worker’s Congress (CWC) — a leading political party representing the Indian-origin Tamils in the Central Province.

“While some of the Tamils of Hill Country origin had integrated successfully into the Sri Lankan society, some have failed and measures would be taken to assist them to do so,” Wickremesinghe said. He said they will try to integrate the Tamils further into the society.

The President recalled the Sirimalwatte-Shastri Pact between the then Indian and Sri Lankan leaders under which some of the Indian-origin plantation Tamils were repatriated. The pact was signed on October 30, 1964 between Sri Lanka and India.

Wickremesinghe recalled that it was the Ceylon Workers Congress founder the late Saumyamurthi Thondaman, who had obtained citizenship for some people who should have left under Srima-Shastri Pact but decided to stay back in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan government turned aggressive against Tamilian groups following its war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The LTTE ran a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.