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Sri Lanka President 'plants' APRC final draft
Munza Mushtaq in Colombo,
January 13, 2008, 11.55 p.m..
In an allegedly blatant display of despotism, President Mahinda
Rajapaksa has virtually 'planted' a proposal as the solution to the
ethnic conflict, which he wants the All Party Representative Committee
(APRC) to submit to him in a "much better" format on January 23, as if
it was the committee's own final draft, highly placed sources said,
the Nation newspaper reported on Sunday
The incident had transpired on Wednesday when the APRC met with
President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Rajapaksa had reportedly pulled out a document, which was given to the
committee members, and told them that it included the guidelines on
how he wanted the final draft from the APRC.
He had said that the document should be given to him in a much better
format and, if necessary, with 'slight amendments' by the middle of
the month as the original draft of the APRC.
The guidelines basically recommend that the 13th Amendment should be
fully implemented. However, the majority of the APRC members had been
furious with the way the President had dictated terms to them.
"The issue got even worse after Presidential aides virtually planted
stories in newspapers to the effect that the APRC had recommended the
full implementation of the 13th Amendment, which was factually
incorrect," a committee member who spoke on conditions of anonymity
told The Nation.
The member emphasised that the APRC had made no such recommendation.
Angry committee members contacted the APRC Chairman Prof. Tissa
Vitarana and requested him to convene a special meeting on Thursday
after seeing the 'plant,' which appeared in both local and foreign
media.
During the special meeting, most of the members, especially the
minority party representatives and even representatives of the left
parties, had expressed anger over Wednesday's turnaround, and had also
requested the APRC Chairman to issue a statement clarifying the
'plant.'
"Why should the APRC make such a recommendation? The President has all
the powers to implement it if he wants to. Why should he ask us to do
something which is already there and only needs action from his side?"
another committee member told The Nation.
When the APRC members had queried from the President as to what they
were supposed to do with the draft which the committee had almost
finalised, the President had allegedly said, "Keep deliberating over
that, we will see about that later." (www.nation.lk)
Discuss this story
Published: Sun Jan 13 14:41:27 EST 2008
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IBN,
jan 14.
Karan Thapar: Last week the Sri Lankan government announced that with effect from January 15 it intends to abrogate the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE. In your eyes is this a mistake or this given the spate of LTTE attacks in recent months both understandable and perhaps also inevitable?
