Supplying electricity to Jaffna is a loss to the country – Patali
Sri
Lanka: Minister threatens Tamils with 'hundred more massacres' 
Supplying electricity to Jaffna is a loss to the country – Patali
TUESDAY, 09 OCTOBER 2012
Supplying electricity to Jaffna is a colossal loss says the Minister of Power and Energy Patali Champika Ranawaka.
He has said supplying electricity to Jaffna incurs a loss of Rs. 3000 million a year for the CEB.
The reason for this loss is due to the inability to add Jaffna to the national grid said the Minister.
As a result of the war situation that prevailed in the country a few years ago the network of electrical supply to Jaffna was destroyed.
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
Sri Lankan minister
Champika Ranawaka with President Mahinda Rajapaksa (File image-Daily
Mirror)
A
senior Sri Lankan minister considered close to President Mahinda Rajapaksa has
threatened the Tamils they would face annihilation if they continued to harbour
homeland ambition.
The
threat by power and energy minister Champika Ranawaka that there would 'one
hundred more Mullivaikkals' has caused deep consternation among the Tamil
leaders here, with DMK president M Karunanidhi writing to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh to tell Colombo 'to adopt a course of restraint and
humanitarianism'.
Mullivaikkal
in northeastern coast of Sri Lanka was the final ‘killing field’ in the Eelam
war that saw the death of thousands of Tamils—including civilians and LTTE
cadres led by Velupillai Prabhakaran—in May 2009. International communities,
including the UNHRC, have been demanding investigation of army excesses during
that last brutal phase of the war.
By
threatening that there could be a hundred Mullivaikkals, Ranawaka, was trying to
resurrect Sinhala racist hatred against the minority Tamils, said PMK founder Dr
S Ramadoss and VCK chief Thol. Thirumavalan.
His
remarks “are highly provocative and therefore condemnable”, said Karunanidhi in
his letter to the PM, adding, “The Tamils all over the world are very much
perturbed over the reprehensible remarks of the Sri Lankan Minister”.
Ranawaka,
who is the leader of the Sinhala rightwing Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a
constituent of the ruling coalition, had made his incendiary statement at a news
conference in Colombo on June 8 while reacting to the speech of Tamil National
Alliance leader R. Sampanthan at the national convention of the Ilankai Tamil
Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), which is part of the TNA.
Expressing
anguish at the failure of the Rajapaksa government to come up with a solution to
the Tamil issue, Sampanthan had said that the position that the north and the
east of Sri Lanka are the areas of historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking
people “cannot be compromised”.
“We
must have unrestricted authority to govern our own land, protect our own people,
and develop our own economy, culture and tradition. A meaningful devolution
should go beyond the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. If the Sri Lankan state
continuously deny this right, we will claim our right under international law to
external self-determination”.
Angered
by Sampanthan’s speech, minister Ranawaka said, “Does Sampanthan want to create
100 more Mullivaikkals? We are ready to forgive and forget the past and think
about the future. But if Sampanthan is calling us to fight, our nation would
proudly accept the challenge”.
This
is not the first time that Ranawaka has provoked anger from the Tamils and even
the rights activists among the majority Sinhala population in Sri Lanka.
The
‘National Movement Against Terrorism’ (NMAT), a hardline Sinhala outfit
campaigning against pro-Tamil activists and media persons during the peak of
Eelam war early 2007, had put up posters calling for ‘annihilation’ of ‘white
Tigers, media Tigers, leftist Tigers’ and Ranawaka said though he was not a
member of NMAT, he backed that poster.
He
had then called pro-Tamil protesters 'scum feeding on foreign money' and even
advocated extra-judicial methods to eliminate the 'treacherous
bastards'.
