COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena Saturday slammed critics of his ethnic reconciliation plan as the country emerges from a decades long ethnic war that claimed over 100,000 lives.
Sirisena marked the Indian Ocean island’s 69th anniversary of independence from Britain with a promise of ethnic unity despite opposition from hardline nationalists.
“Those who oppose our commitment to ethnic reconciliation and national unity are working against the country,” Sirisena said in an address to the nation.
Stopping short of naming his predecessor, strongman Mahinda Rajapakse, Sirisena said those who oppose him were working against stability and the rebuilding of the nation’s war-battered infrastructure.
“Those opportunists who oppose ethnic reconciliation and national unity are working to achieve their narrow political objectives (of gaining power). They are anti-national forces,” Sirisena said.
The ceremonies at Colombo’s seafront Galle Face promenade ended with school children singing the national anthem in Tamil, the language of the main minority community, despite opposition from hard-liners among the majority Sinhalese.
Last year Sirisena also ordered the national anthem sung in Tamil during independence celebrations, for the first time in over six decades. Tamils called it a “giant step” in ethnic inclusiveness. The previous government of Rajapakse had banned the singing of the national anthem in Tamil at official ceremonies. Security forces under Rajapakse crushed Tamil rebels in a no-holds-barred military campaign to end a 37-year separatist war. — AFP
