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Ousted Sri Lankan foreign minister says his calls to curb rights abuses led to dismissal
Associated Press,
Thu February 15, 2007 08:04 EST .
- - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) Sri Lanka - 's ousted foreign minister said on Thursday he was dismissed by the government mainly because he had stressed the need to curb human rights abuses including abductions and killings in the country. ``As the foreign minister, I pointed out those human rights violations very often and that's a reason for them to oppose me,'' said Mangala Samaraweera, referring to President Mahinda Rajapakse's decision to oust him from the Cabinet last Friday. Rajapakse's dismissal of Samaraweera and two other ministers came after they protested against the president's decision to reshuffle his Cabinet. Rajapakse made the changes on Jan. 28 when 25 opposition members defected, cementing the government's majority in the 225-member Parliament. Ten of the former opposition members were given ministerial positions in the new, expanded 53-member Cabinet. Following the shuffle, Samaraweera was removed as foreign minister but retained his ports and aviation portfolio. A few days later, he was sacked from that post too. ``I repeatedly said that our silence over human rights issues will only strengthen the terrorists internationally while we are conducting a successful military campaign against them,'' Samaraweera said referring to the fight against separatist Tamil Tiger rebels. Government officials could not be immediately reached for comment. According to the Civil Monitoring Commission, a local organization that has pushed for investigations into abductions and killings, about 50 people have been kidnapped in the past 12 months in the capital Colombo and its suburbs, and 12 people have been found killed. The hostage-takers released 16 people after their relatives paid ransoms, said Mano Ganeshan, a commission official. Ganeshan said the majority of those abducted and killed belong to the ethnic Tamil minority. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels have fought the government for decades to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict, including more than 3,600 who died in the latest wave of fighting since December 2005, seriously undermining a 2002 Norway-brokered cease-fire. The two sides claim they are adhering to the truce.
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Published: Thu Feb 15 09:23:22 EST 2007
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We have lost a great mathe-
matician, engineer, scientist, an old timer
of SLNet/LAcNet and a former LAcNet director. Pubudu Dayawansa (Daya)
was instrumental in carrying out many LAcNet projects. He was
responsible in setting up "Colombo Calling" a website that was
designed to carry weekly articles from Sri Lankan Academic community
and Human Rights activists. [
BBC Sinhala,
15 Feb 2007 - 20:10 EDT.
In a speech to the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Indian National Security Advicer M. K. Narayanan said different organisations indulging in terrorism raise their funding through legal and illegal means.
