{"id":52034,"date":"2016-02-13T22:22:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T04:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52034"},"modified":"2016-02-13T15:05:37","modified_gmt":"2016-02-13T22:05:37","slug":"open-letter-from-sri-lankans-in-los-angeles-to-the-sri-lankan-government-via-ambassador-prasad-kariyawasam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/02\/13\/open-letter-from-sri-lankans-in-los-angeles-to-the-sri-lankan-government-via-ambassador-prasad-kariyawasam\/","title":{"rendered":"OPEN LETTER FROM SRI LANKANS IN LOS ANGELES TO THE SRI LANKAN GOVERNMENT VIA AMBASSADOR PRASAD KARIYAWASAM"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXT OF PETITION<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

February 4 is a day when Sri Lankans look back with immense pride on the long road our forefathers took to free our beloved island from foreign domination.<\/p>\n

This year, that pride is tempered with the reality of the numerous indignities being heaped on our nation by foreign powers and other threats to Sri Lanka\u2019s continued existence as a free and sovereign state.<\/p>\n

Seven years after the defeat of a 30-year long terrorist movement for separatism, we observe with great concern disastrous moves to drag Sri Lanka away from what was a journey towards peace and nation-building to chaos, disharmony, and fragmentation. As Sri Lankan- Americans who dedicated decades to confronting the separatist movement and its pro-LTTE lobby in the US we are alarmed at the following developments:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Eelam groups backed by foreign governments and NGOs dictating policy and governance in Sri Lanka while soldiers and military officials who risked their lives to bring back peace and normalcy are being hounded, harassed, and jailed.<\/li>\n
  • The all out plan to dilute the existing unitary constitution for a nominal unitary\u201d status implementing all features under federalism.<\/li>\n
  • Attempts to bring in a new constitution sans salient features safeguarding the true sovereignty of the people, through an all-powerful Parliament steering committee and a flawed referendum containing a mix of variety of issues.<\/li>\n
  • Subjecting the country\u2019s foreign policies, investments and resources to the behest of India and other powerful western nations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    On this 68th anniversary of Sri Lanka Independence we urge President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe to make the following commitments to ensure the nation\u2019s stability and continued existence as a sovereign nation:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Stop the harassment of Sri Lankan forces responsible for defeating the LTTE and treat them with the same respect and dignity that the United States, Britain and others give to their war veterans.<\/li>\n
    • Make a declaration guaranteeing the unitary status of the Sri Lankan constitution<\/li>\n
    • Make any revisions or the enactment of a new constitution subject to Parliamentary procedures and a genuine referendum calling for the people\u2019s preferences on each issue.<\/li>\n
    • Require Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign envoys to counteract the outrageous diabolical untruths against Sri Lanka propagated by the international media such as the New York Times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      ABOVE ALL: STOP THE POLICY OF APPEASEMENT.<\/p>\n

      The security and prosperity of the Sri Lankan people should be at the core of all decisions not the appeasement of separatists and foreign forces who want to see Sri Lanka balkanized and fragmented along racial and religious lines.<\/p>\n

      Contact: (818) 943-6391; lankahub@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      TEXT OF PETITION February 4 is a day when Sri Lankans look back with immense pride on the long road our forefathers took to free our beloved island from foreign domination. This year, that pride is tempered with the reality of the numerous indignities being heaped on our nation by foreign powers and other threats […]<\/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-52034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52034","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=52034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}