Sri Lankan leader vows to resolve “misconceptions” over rights registration Tamil News

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has called for human rights reforms and “justice” for missing people after years of protests over such measures.

The Sri Lankan president has promised to change his country’s “misconceptions” Human rights a record following international criticism of wartime atrocities and extrajudicial killings.

They were accused by government troops systematic abuses The island’s decades-long separatist war against the Tamil Tiger group killed at least 40,000 civilians in 2009 at the end of the conflict.

Sri Lanka has consistently denied the allegations. Since being elected president in 2019, Rajapaksa has rejected calls to investigate people missing from the civil war.

Families of the victims have complained that many of the missing were taken by the military for their involvement with separatist rebels towards the end of the conflict.

Authorities have also been accused of killing journalists and activists over the years, and have recently reported criminal suspects killed in police custody.

But President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who took office in 2019, said the list of his government was clean and suggested that he had been the victim of unfair criticism from abroad.

“We need to address the misconceptions that have plagued the international community about our human rights in the past,” Rajapaksa said in a speech to a new parliamentary session on Tuesday.

“During my tenure, the government did not tolerate any human rights violations. We will leave no room for such action in the future. “

The Sri Lankan leader has called on the country to “not stop politicians who are pushing people against each other for political gain”.

“We reject racism. What this government wants is to protect the honor and rights of all citizens equally, “Rajapaksa said.

In previous speeches, Rajapaksa has projected himself as the leader of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority and stressed that he was primarily elected with their votes.

Since his election, several high-ranking underground characters have been shot dead in police custody, and other suspects have been detained without trial for a long time.

Rajapaksa was also the chief defense officer of the island at the end of the war, under the presidency of his elder brother Mahinda.

It was Sri Lanka censored The UN Human Rights Council failed to properly investigate serious human rights violations at the end of the conflict. Refusal to direct or investigate the government Human rights and allegations of civil war crimes have been a source of tension in his dealings with many Western countries and surrounding India.

Last month, Rajapaksa was appointed governor of the province on charges of kidnapping a former army chief. the murder of nearly a dozen children, in a plan to extort their wealthy families.

Economic crisis

Sri Lanka is currently undergoing a slow-burning fire economic crisis which has resulted in food rationing and power outages.

The island was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government has made efforts to finance critical imports as a result of declining foreign exchange reserves.

India has offered a $ 500 million loan to its neighbors on Tuesday to pay for urgent oil imports, after the Sri Lankan Energy Ministry warned that the island would run out of fuel by the end of the month.

India has 80 million ethnic Tamils ​​and has sought to protect the rights of Sri Lankan minority Tamils.

Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves were estimated at about $ 1.6 billion in early 2022, barely enough for a few weeks for imports. It also has more than $ 7 billion in foreign debt this year.

The shortage of money has led to a severe shortage of imported goods and long queues of milk powder, cooking gas, kerosene and other essentials.

Rajapaksa told parliament that the country should once again attract tourists for the benefit of the economy, but did not announce any new measures to deal with the situation in Sri Lanka.