“We clearly see an attempt to raise racial and religious issues and make people victims of that conspiracy. There are definitely hidden hands behind this as in history. Therefore, we strongly request all the Sri Lankan people of this country to immediately stop the conspiracy to create religious and racist conflicts in this country. The rulers are anticipating a public upheaval caused by the wrongdoing of a certain group and creating opposing conflicts. We earnestly request all the people to build national unity and build religious unity without getting caught up in such conspiracies,” emphasizes National Executive Member of the National People’s Power, Member of Parliament Vijitha Herath.
He emphasized this while addressing a press conference held at the head office of the JVP today (20th).
Saroja Savitri Paulraj, president of Women for Rights Organization, also joined the press conference.
Mr Herath said, “May 19 marks 14 years since the end of the war. The people of this country were waiting with burning eyes until the end of the war to strengthen the economy and build national unity among all nationalities. During the Thirty Years’ War, the rulers repeatedly said they would build a happy and prosperous economy in this country as soon as the war ended. The rulers said the economy could be rebuilt through agriculture, fisheries and other products in the war-torn areas.
By showing the paddy harvest in the Sahalnaliya area, the rulers of that time said the country could be made self-sufficient in rice. When then Fisheries Minister Rajitha Senaratne went to the fish market in Jaffna he told how to develop the country by harvesting the fishery resources from the whole country. Because of this, people had high hopes.
But 14 years after the war’s end, the economy has collapsed, and the country has been entirely bankrupt, creating a situation where the people find it hard to make ends meet. Today it has been proven more than enough that the rulers have no plan to build the country, even if they suppressed the issue under the guise of war. People are becoming aware that the rulers used racism and religion to maintain power even during war. By inciting people’s feelings and dividing them according to nationality and religion, the rulers created different gangs, cliques and groups to maintain their power. The hope that after the end of the war, everyone would come together to build the Sri Lankan nation was destroyed by the rulers and they neglected building the economy and national unity.
Exactly one week after the end of the war, on May 26, we, as a political movement, gave the government, in writing, a series of proposals on building national unity. The series of proposals were also presented to the people of this country. It was pointed out that the issue of the displaced people, the issue of the missing persons, should be investigated immediately, and necessary interventions should be made immediately to do justice. It was pointed out that all the political parties representing the parliament should unite and build a task force for a period of two years to rebuild all the parties affected by the war and the North East areas. It was suggested that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be established immediately to heal the hearts of all parties.
But even after 14 years, none of the governments in power followed these positive measures. When Ranil Wickremesinghe was Prime Minister, he promised to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by giving written promises to the United Nations Human Rights Commission during the good governance period. The Foreign Minister and the Justice Minister announced that this commission would be re-established after attending a conference in South Africa.
It is really too late now. Fourteen years later, instead of building national unity and economy, we have seen that various activities are being carried out in various places in Sri Lanka that are fueling racism and religious disharmony. The incident of a group of people protesting against a group of monks in Trincomalee, a person named Jeremy Fernando making statements insulting Buddhism and re-igniting racism and bigotry, commemorating the war dead and inciting racism against it are creating incidents. The relatives of families of those who died due to war in the North, South or anywhere in Sri Lanka have the right to commemorate the dead. We have seen how various thugs and racist groups operate recently without allowing that right.
Conspiratorial political actions are being carried out to incite racism and religious disharmony in a conspiratorial manner by suppressing the real issue of the people who are under extreme pressure. Around the time of the 2019 presidential election, they carried out various campaigns such as sterile food, sterile surgeries, sterile clothes, etc. The Easter attack can be its culmination.
After the Easter attack, Gotabaya Rajapaksa ran for the presidential election, and until now, there is nothing about barren doctors and barren food. As in history, the rulers are still doing conspiracies to create racial and religious conflicts in different parts of society. These are hard to understand on the surface. This can be clearly understood by looking at the occurrence of two or three events within the last week.
We clearly see an attempt to raise racist and religious issues and make the people victims of that conspiracy. There are definitely hidden hands behind this, as in history. Therefore, we strongly request all the Sri Lankan people of this country not to give any opportunity to the conspirators to create religious and racist conflicts in this country. The rulers are anticipating a public upheaval caused by the wrongdoing of a certain group and going to create opposing conflicts. We call upon all the people to build national unity and build religious unity without getting caught up in vile conspiracies. Our position in politics is that ee strongly condemn all actions taken by any person or group to denigrate another nationality or religion. It is the government’s responsibility to protect the freedom of religion as confirmed by the constitution. We very earnestly request all the people of this country to understand intelligently at the first instance of such conspiracies and intervene immediately to defeat them.”
