{"id":70936,"date":"2017-10-22T15:40:32","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T22:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=70936"},"modified":"2017-10-22T15:40:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T22:40:32","slug":"gota-says-further-devolution-wont-solve-northerners-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/10\/22\/gota-says-further-devolution-wont-solve-northerners-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Gota says further devolution won\u2019t solve northerners\u2019 problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0<\/em>Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said further devolution of power won\u2019t solve the problems faced by the Tamil community.<\/p>\n

Addressing a gathering organised by Viyathmaga (Gampaha organization) at Wet Water Resort on Ja-ela-Gampaha road, on Saturday, Rajapaksa said he wasn\u2019t aware of any country where problems had been solved with the help of devolution of power.<\/p>\n

Those who had faulted the previous Rajapaksa administration for not addressing post-war issues had conveniently forgotten how practical measures were taken to provide relief to the people.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary urged Viyathmaga activists to play an active role in the ongoing campaign to educate people on the growing threats to post-war Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

The war veteran said that those who were now campaigning for a new Constitution had earlier opposed a military solution. They always said that the war couldn\u2019t be won under any circumstances, Rajapaksa said, adding that he, too, had received that advice when he became the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence in the late 2005.<\/p>\n

Some countries, too, had also claimed that the LTTE couldn\u2019t be defeated, Rajapaksa said. Referring to the tripartite Ceasefire Agreement among the governments of Sri Lanka, Norway and the LTTE signed in Feb 2002, Rajapaksa said such attempts were aimed at depriving Sri Lanka victory over terrorism. On the pretext of guise of promoting post-war reconciliation some element were all out to change the Constitution, he said.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa said the previous administration had scored a bigger victory when projects were undertaken to bring relief to the war weary population. Declaring that their resettlement and rehabilitation projects had been an unprecedented success, Rajapaksa claimed that the new administration couldn\u2019t achieve even a fraction of what the previous government had done.<\/p>\n

The government changed in January 2015<\/p>\n

In spite of the Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987, it hadn\u2019t been able to set up the Northern Provincial Council until Sept. 2013, five years after the conclusion of the war, Rajapaksa said.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary also referred to the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the subsequent war in 1971, which led to the creation of the new independent state of Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

He said the Rajapaksa administration had sought to address problems faced by the people. Justifying their refusal to meet the aspirations of those who had been promoting separatist sentiments, Rajapaksa explained practical measures taken to help the northerners. Contrary to claims, the land held by the armed forces in the northern theater of operations as well as in other areas had been released during the previous administration, he said.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa repeatedly insisted that further devolution and constitutional reforms weren\u2019t solutions to the problems faced by the people.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary said the rehabilitation of 12,000 LTTE cadres and an end to the forcible conscription of child soldiers had been significant achievements.<\/p>\n

Former SEC Chairman Dr. Nalaka Godahewa said the country was in deep crisis thanks to waste, corruption and irregularities in addition to absence of proper planning at any level.<\/p>\n

Having referred to the 17-year-old UNP rule followed by nearly 20 year PA\/UPFA administrations, Dr. Godahewa pointed out that in spite of giving resolute political leadership to eradicate terrorism and launching major development projects, President Mahinda Rajapaksa had failed to emerge victorious at the January 2015 presidential poll.<\/p>\n

Those who had high expectations of the new administrations were disappointed and desperate today as they had realised the regime-change project had backfired, Godahewa said.<\/p>\n

The entire country was in turmoil with protests in Colombo almost on a daily basis with the government depending on the police to contain growing unrest.<\/p>\n

Declaring that UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had spearheaded the project to defeat Rajapaksa, through Maithripala Sirisena, who contested the presidential polls, after having quit the SLFP, Dr. Godahewa explained how foreign powers, powerful Tamil Diaspora and the NGO and INGO community had fully backed the campaign.<\/p>\n

The electorate, obviously lacked knowledge of the powers that manipulated the people who really believed the Rajapaksas were the bane of the country, the former SEC Chief said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Godahewa explained the role played by the powerful Tamil Diaspora that had the capacity even to fund Hillary Clinton\u2019s presidential election campaign.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the India\u2019s role, Dr. Godahewa said that the change of government in New Delhi resulted in hostility and certain measures that caused trouble for post-war Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Godahewa, those who had been involved in the regime change operations had reached agreement on three issues namely taking all possible measures to thwart Mahinda Rajapaksa regaining power, discrediting armed forces and introducing a new Constitution\/amendments to the existing Constitution.<\/p>\n

The 19th Amendment was really meant to hurt the Rajapaksas, not only former President, but Gotabhaya and Basil Rajapaksa as well, Dr. Godahewa said, pointing out that it prohibited dual citizens from contesting presidential or parliamentary polls.<\/p>\n

Dr. Godahewa flayed the government for not having a workable economic policy. In the run-up to January 2015 presidential polls and thereafter, the government had issued ten policy statements that dealt with economy though nothing was done so far to keep its promises.<\/p>\n

Alleging that the government lacked strength or vision to develop the country, Dr. Godahewa explained the circumstances under which the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration had leased strategically located Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease. Dr. Godahewa said the government could have settled the loan taken from China and Sri Lanka had 22 years to meet the requirement. Unfortunately, the government had no intention of developing the port and wanted to lease it, Dr. Godahewa said, emphasising that 99-year lease actually meant it would never be regained.<\/p>\n

Dr. Godahewa said that the government was busy trying to fulfil promises made to its sponsors in a bid to retain support at the next national level election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said further devolution of power won\u2019t solve the problems faced by the Tamil community. Addressing a gathering organised by Viyathmaga (Gampaha organization) at Wet Water Resort on Ja-ela-Gampaha road, on Saturday, Rajapaksa said he wasn\u2019t aware of any country where problems had been solved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70936","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=70936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}