{"id":95941,"date":"2019-12-02T16:09:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T23:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95941"},"modified":"2019-12-02T16:09:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T23:09:12","slug":"national-joint-committee-letter-to-president-gotabaya-rajapaksa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/02\/national-joint-committee-letter-to-president-gotabaya-rajapaksa\/","title":{"rendered":"National Joint Committee letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Joint Committee<\/em> <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

20th<\/sup>\nSeptember 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His Excellency, Gotabaya Rajapaksa,
President of Sri Lanka,
Presidential Secretariat,
Colombo 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Excellency,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Joint Committee wish to congratulate you on\nbeing elected as the seventh Executive President of Sri Lanka. We also wish you\nevery success during your term in office as President of Sri Lanka to implement\nthe election manifesto that you presented to the people. You have proven to be\nan achiever who has always successfully implemented whatever task that you were\nentrusted without any fear or favor. We are therefore confident that you will\nbe able to protect and preserve the unitary character of the state, its territorial\nintegrity and the sovereignty of the people of our nation for posterity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have unfortunately been elected the President of a\ncountry in which people are divided based on ethnicity and religion. One of the\nreasons for such division is ethnic and religious based party politics. We\nsincerely hope that you will be able to unite the people of our country by\ndoing away with ethnic and religious based party politics. The other reason\nthat divides the people is the gradual establishment of ethnic enclaves in\ncertain parts of the country. Such ethnic enclave need to be discouraged and an\neffort needs to be initiated to integrate people of all ethnic groups and\nreligious beliefs in all parts of the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indo Lanka Agreement that was forced on Sri Lanka by\nIndia through gunboat diplomacy that resulted in the introduction of the 13th\nAmendment to our Constitution has to be abrogated as the Provincial Councils\nthus established have proven to be white elephants. Devolution of power as\nopposed to decentralization of power can even result in\nthe division of our nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is our view that Provincial Councils or similar\ninstitutions should never be given legislative powers. We endorse your policy\nof having one law for the entire nation. Granting legislative power to\nProvincial Councils would go counter to such policy Therefore legislative power\ngiven to Provincial Councils should be removed as a matter of priority.\nLegislative power should only be exercised by Parliament. Even if Provincial\nCouncils are allowed to remain we are in favor of strengthening the Local\nAuthorities and Provincial Council members to be nominated from the existing\nLocal Authorities thus avoiding Provincial Council elections. Such a move would\nprevent Provincial Council members being remunerated utilizing public\nfunds.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Joint Committee appreciates your pledge to\nfollow a strictly nonaligned foreign policy. Due to the fact that Sri Lanka is\nstrategically located in the Indian Ocean the country needs to remain\nnonaligned and refrain from getting involved in the geopolitical confrontation\nthat is developing between America and China, through agreements that would\nenable these countries to gain a foothold in Sri Lanka. Therefore all bilateral\nagreements Sri Lanka has signed or propose to sign needs to be evaluated to\nensure that our country follows a strictly nonaligned policy. We are very\nmuch concerned with the numerous trade and other agreements the Government of\nSri Lanka signed or attempted to sign with other countries against our national\ninterests. We therefore urge that Article 157 of the Constitution be further\nstrengthened to ensure that no future Government would enter into such\nagreements surreptitiously without the approval of Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally we sincerely hope you will take necessary action to\nenable Sri Lanka to withdraw from the co-sponsorship of UNHRC Resolution 30\/1\ntaking into consideration information available in the Report of the Second\nMandate of the Maxwell Paranagama Presidential Commission of Inquiry and Lord\nNaseby’s discloses to the British Parliament. It is our view that your\nExcellency as a matter of priority prevent NGO\u2019S both local and foreign from\ninterfering with state affairs. The anti Sri Lankan resolutions and agreements\nwere entered into and numerous legislation enacted to harass our Armed Forces\nat the instigation of these NGO\u2019S. Therefore we suggest for you to appoint a\nspecial Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the conduct of these NGO\u2019S and\nprevent them from interfering with the affairs of our motherland.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anil Amarasekera\/-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt Col,A.S.Amarasekera.(Rtd.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-President.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Joint Committee 20th September 2019. His Excellency, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka,Presidential Secretariat,Colombo 1. Your Excellency, The National Joint Committee wish to congratulate you on being elected as the seventh Executive President of Sri Lanka. We also wish you every success during your term in office as President of Sri Lanka to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95941","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=95941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}