‘Don’t spread racism to achieve narrow political gains’ – President request in Parliament

President Maithripala Sirisena

President Maithripala Sirisena requested the politicians not to spread narrow racist ideas among the Sinhala Buddhist community to achieve their narrow political gains.

He made these observations participating in the debate on the expenditure of the Defence Ministry in Parliament yesterday (4), in his capacity as the Defence Minister.

The President emphasized that even though some extremists spread rumours on national security the government will fulfill all its duties to strengthen the national security and will never allow to endanger the national security of this country.

The President recalling the Jawaharlal Nehru’s quote that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” said that the true patriotism means creating a peaceful nation to live in peace and harmony while ensuring a non-recurrence of the past events that led to the conflict.

Expressing his views regarding the blames for the release of alleged LTTE suspects he said that to prevent Northern youth taking arms into their hands we should win the confidence of them and initiatives like this will strengthen the national reconciliation process.

Ex LTTE Eastern Commander Karuna Amman was released under the previous regime and he became a Member of Parliament a Minister moreover he was appointed as the SLFP Vice President. Pillayan an ex-LTTE leader was also appointed as the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province and another prominent LTTE leader Kumaran Pathmanathan was also released under the previous regime. Over 12,000 LTTE prisoners were released under the Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government.

President Sirisena questioned then how can the present government’s current policy on prisoners would be wrong and if the previously released 12,000 LTTE prisoners do not have the capability to pose a major threat to the national security how could this small number of persons will pose a threat to the national security.

President Maithripala Sirisena said that the majority of people in the North and East elected him as the President of this country to strengthen the national reconciliation process and said that he will always be committed to build a prosperous and peaceful country for the people of this country as well as for the future generations while ensuring a non recurrence of the war.

“As a government when fulfilling its duties towards the national security the government will take every possible steps to improve the quality of Tri-Forces,” the President added.

(President’s Media)