{"id":99115,"date":"2020-02-19T15:25:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T22:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99115"},"modified":"2020-02-19T15:25:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T22:25:50","slug":"collective-travel-ban-imposed-on-the-army-commander-and-his-family-by-the-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/19\/collective-travel-ban-imposed-on-the-army-commander-and-his-family-by-the-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Collective travel ban imposed on the Army Commander and his family by the USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEDIA RELEASE by Mahinda Rajapaksa Prime Minister<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The United States of America has prohibited\nthe Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva or members of his\nfamily from entering that country. Even though we are now in the 21st<\/sup> Century,\neven members of his family who have not been accused of any wrongdoing have\nbeen subjected to a collective punishment reminiscent of the practice in\nmedieval Europe. The people should be the judge of how fair this is. Even\nthough this collective punishment has been meted out on the grounds that the\nArmy Commander had committed violations of human rights, no one knows what\nthese allegations are. Even though the International Covenant on Civil and\nPolitical Rights says that until a person accused of a crime is proved guilty\naccording to law, he should be deemed innocent, this principle does not seem to\napply to Sri Lanka\u2019s Army Commander or even to members of his family. Our\ngovernment has already conveyed our displeasure in this regard to the\ngovernment of the United States in the strongest possible terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is because of the historic betrayal\ncommitted by the yahapalana government formed by the United National Party, the\nTamil National Alliance and the JVP in co-sponsoring UN Human Rights Council\nResolution 30\/1 in 2015 that other countries are able to name members of our\narmed forces as violators of human rights. The first operative paragraph of\nthat Resolution had taken note \u2018with appreciation\u2019 the September 2015 Report of\nthe Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights which accused the Sri\nLankan armed forces of human rights violations. This report was based on the\nprevious 2011 unofficial report prepared by a three member committee appointed\nby the then UN Secretary General outside the established procedure of that\norganisation. In this manner, the UNP-TNA-JVP combine ended up accepting all\nthe unfounded allegations made against our armed forces by various interested\nparties. Our government has decided to withdraw from the process of\nco-sponsorship in relation to Resolution 30\/1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the Army Commander of our country\nand his family have been subjected to a collective punishment reminiscent of\nmedieval times, the yahapalana political parties have not condemned it. UNP\nParliamentarian Lakshman Kiriella says that this travel ban imposed on the Army\nCommander and his family is the responsibility of the present government. The\nJVP says that the USA has imposed a travel ban on the Army Commander and his\nfamily at this particular moment due to a deal to ensure that the SLPP obtains\na resounding victory at the forthcoming Parliamentary elections. For its part\nthe Tamil National Alliance has welcomed the collective travel ban imposed on\nthe Army Commander and his family. The people should take note of the fact that\nwhen the UNP government co-sponsored Resolution 30\/1 in the UN Human Rights\nCouncil, the so called anti-imperialist JVP did not oppose it.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the discussion that has taken place with\nregard to the collective punishment imposed on the Army Commander and his\nfamily, it becomes clear that the political divide in this country is between\nthe patriotic camp which puts the country first, on the one hand, and born\ntraitors who are waiting for the first opportunity to betray the country, on\nthe other hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prime Minister<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEDIA RELEASE by Mahinda Rajapaksa Prime Minister The United States of America has prohibited the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva or members of his family from entering that country. Even though we are now in the 21st Century, even members of his family who have not been accused of any wrongdoing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mahinda-rajapaksa","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99115","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=99115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}