{"id":51303,"date":"2016-01-21T13:00:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T20:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=51303"},"modified":"2016-01-21T13:00:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T20:00:54","slug":"interference-in-sri-lankas-internal-affairs-letter-to-the-british-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/01\/21\/interference-in-sri-lankas-internal-affairs-letter-to-the-british-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Interference in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs-Letter to the British Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harsha Perera\u00a0Victoria\u00a0Australia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Dear Mr. Swire,<\/p>\n

I refer you to recent statements that you have made about Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

The statements are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The UK does not specify what the constitutions of other countries should be.<\/li>\n
  2. Reconciliation is needed for the economy to grow<\/li>\n
  3. The UK will be training the Sri Lankan Armed Forces to be a modern 21st<\/sup> century armed forces and on how to operate in a democracy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Your assertions smacks of the very clever spin that you and your predecessors going as far back as 1815 have generated.\u00a0 This clever spin has been able to make the ruthless exploitation and domination of Sri Lanka that successive British governments have engaged in to appear benign and beneficial to the local population.<\/p>\n

    As the saying goes \u2018you can fool some of the people all of the time and fool all the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time\u2019. The abuse of the concept of furthering democracy to destabilise countries and to further the national interests of powerful countries such as the UK, is no longer a secret.<\/p>\n

    Now let me take each statement and respond to them:<\/p>\n

    Statement 1:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • The UK as a co-sponsor of the latest UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka is demanding that Sri Lanka establish a hybrid international-national court in Sri Lanka to try and that Sri Lanka further devolve power as a part of the reconciliation process.<\/li>\n
    • Both of these demands require changes to the Sri Lankan constitutional and proves very clearly that the UK is dictating at least in part what the Sri Lankan constitution should be.<\/li>\n
    • Therefore this statement is a blatant lie<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Statement 2:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • This is obvious and the statement insults the intelligence of Sri Lankans.<\/li>\n
      • We know this very well and have been engaging in a process of reconciliation since 2009 using methods devised by Sri Lankans for Sri Lankans<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Statement 3:<\/p>\n

          \n
        • This is an arrogant and patronising statement<\/li>\n
        • The Sri Lankan armed forces are the MOST SUCCESSFUL counter-terrorism armed forces in the world after having completely defeated the most ruthless terrorist group in the world despite repeated attempts by the UK to prevent that victory and despite repeated statements by the UK that the LTTE cannot be defeated militarily<\/li>\n
        • This victory was achieved by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces using strategies and tactics innovated by Sri Lankans<\/li>\n
        • The Sri Lankan Armed Forces are world leaders and pioneers in counter-terrorism<\/li>\n
        • The Sri Lankan Armed Forces CAN teach the UK armed forces lessons on how to defeat terrorists with minimum civilian casualties and how to de-radicalise, rehabilitate and re-integrate former terrorists back into society and how to support the nation in the post conflict period.<\/li>\n
        • The Sri Lankan Armed Forces DON\u201dT NEED any advice from the UK about how to operate in a democracy having guarded and respected democracy for over 60 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          The above demands are a blatant interference in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan people have NEVER given the UK a mandate to dictate to them how Sri Lanka should be structured, how its Armed Forces should operate and how Sri Lanka should solve its own problems.<\/p>\n

          We DON\u201dT NEED ill intentioned, unsolicited and patronising advice from imperialists powers such as the UK.<\/p>\n

          We know what is best for our country and its armed forces and we will decide the future of both.<\/p>\n

          Please mind your own business and STOP interfering in our country.
          \nBest Wishes
          \nHarsha Perera
          \nVictoria
          \nAustralia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Harsha Perera\u00a0Victoria\u00a0Australia Dear Mr. Swire, I refer you to recent statements that you have made about Sri Lanka. The statements are: The UK does not specify what the constitutions of other countries should be. Reconciliation is needed for the economy to grow The UK will be training the Sri Lankan Armed Forces to be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}