George Rupesinghe Sydney, Australia

Your reporter Dharisha Bastians, in her/his account of the Pope’s visit to Sri Lanka, syndicated in The Sydney Morning Herald on 15 January, refers to former President Rajapakse’s “refusal to address concerns about postwar reconciliation.” Surely Bastians must be aware that it was Rajapakse who set up the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission whose report was submitted years ago and some recommendations of which have been put in train after careful study. Further recommendations were under careful scrutiny owing to political and security implications.

It is not true that ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists have “long been hostile . . . to the restoration of power to elected Tamil leaders” in the north. Despite political advice to the contrary, Rajapakse held elections to the Northern Provincial Council giving Tamils the franchise they had been denied for decades when the area was under the terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) control. Despite that gesture, Tamils voted overwhelmingly for candidates opposed to Rajapakse on instructions from the LTTE-funded Tamil diaspora propaganda machine.

A good part of the Sinhalese Buddhist electorate was, however, dismayed that Rajapakse spent billions on impressive development and infrastructure projects in the north and east and repaired the extensive damage of decades wrought by the LTTE without commensurate projects elsewhere in the country. This cost him valuable votes in the south but, more significantly, did not endear him to the Tamils, who refused to acknowledge the benefits of such largesse and the climate of peace, safety and wellbeing he ushered in, and voted overwhelmingly for his opponent in the presidential election.