Enough is enough: Mangala responds to MR
2016-07-31
Responding to Former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa’s statement on the Office on Missing Persons, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mangala Samaraweera today said MP Rajapaksa is trying to score political points at the expense of the grieving mothers and the future generations.
Following is the full statement of Minister Samaraweera.
Presidential commissions, including those appointed by Mahinda Rajapaksa such as the LLRC and Paranagama Commissions, have received complaints from the tens thousands of family members of those who have gone missing due to conflicts in the North and South.
Even today, years after the guns have gone silent, on a daily basis, mothers - bearing hardship and financial burden - go from government office to office, from police station to army camp, in the desperate search for their sons. The mothers’ backgrounds are different but their grief is the same: for example, there are those whose sons were forcibly conscripted by the LTTE, those whose sons participated in the 1987 insurrection and those mothers whose sons joined the army, but for whom all that is left are three letters, MIA.
In fact, even today in my constituency of Matara, there are mothers who come to me searching for their long disappeared sons. These mothers hope against hope that their children are alive and at the very least, to put the past behind, they need to know how, where and why they died. During the meetings that we had with families of the missing from across the country over the last few months, there were mothers of soldiers who came to us asking us to at least find a small bone fragment of their missing sons so that they can find closure.
As the LLRC notes, this anguish is something that we as Government have an urgent responsibility to address. We need to provide the families of the missing and disappeared with the truth and we need to provide them with relief.
During former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime all that was done was window-dressing to dupe the international community. But now, in his opportunistic fashion, my former friend Mahinda is trying to score political points at the expense of the grieving mothers and at the expense of future generations.
But before I expose the list of factual inaccuracies and lies that constitutes his statement on the Office of Missing Persons, it is important to know the background of his statement, especially on this topic.
As all those who have read my Open Letter to Mahinda are aware, in the early 1990s, no one’s voice was louder than his in articulating the tears of the mothers of the missing in Parliament, in the Courts and even at the UNHRC in Geneva.
In fact, speaking in Parliament after a visit to Geneva on 25th October 1990, he boldly proclaimed, “if the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” On the same day, he said, “I took the wailings of this country’s mothers. Do I not have the freedom to speak about them?”. At another point he was arrested at the airport for trying to take 533 documents to Geneva containing information on thousands of disappearances and his fundamental rights case was heard at the Supreme Court.
Not only did Mahinda voice their sorrow, he also succeeded in getting the world to act.
Soon after his visit, the international community imposed conditions on aid. In the same Parliamentary debate quoted above, he boasted, “We asked the donors countries as to why conditions cannot be imposed when giving aid. That was the request we made. It is what has been fulfilled today.” These words speak for themselves and there is no need therefore for me to recount Mahinda’s words and action after he became President, to demonstrate what a hypocrite he has become.
- See more>>>
2016-07-31Responding to Former President and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa’s statement on the Office on Missing Persons, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mangala Samaraweera today said MP Rajapaksa is trying to score political points at the expense of the grieving mothers and the future generations.
Following is the full statement of Minister Samaraweera.
Presidential commissions, including those appointed by Mahinda Rajapaksa such as the LLRC and Paranagama Commissions, have received complaints from the tens thousands of family members of those who have gone missing due to conflicts in the North and South.
Even today, years after the guns have gone silent, on a daily basis, mothers - bearing hardship and financial burden - go from government office to office, from police station to army camp, in the desperate search for their sons. The mothers’ backgrounds are different but their grief is the same: for example, there are those whose sons were forcibly conscripted by the LTTE, those whose sons participated in the 1987 insurrection and those mothers whose sons joined the army, but for whom all that is left are three letters, MIA.
In fact, even today in my constituency of Matara, there are mothers who come to me searching for their long disappeared sons. These mothers hope against hope that their children are alive and at the very least, to put the past behind, they need to know how, where and why they died. During the meetings that we had with families of the missing from across the country over the last few months, there were mothers of soldiers who came to us asking us to at least find a small bone fragment of their missing sons so that they can find closure.
As the LLRC notes, this anguish is something that we as Government have an urgent responsibility to address. We need to provide the families of the missing and disappeared with the truth and we need to provide them with relief.
During former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime all that was done was window-dressing to dupe the international community. But now, in his opportunistic fashion, my former friend Mahinda is trying to score political points at the expense of the grieving mothers and at the expense of future generations.
But before I expose the list of factual inaccuracies and lies that constitutes his statement on the Office of Missing Persons, it is important to know the background of his statement, especially on this topic.
As all those who have read my Open Letter to Mahinda are aware, in the early 1990s, no one’s voice was louder than his in articulating the tears of the mothers of the missing in Parliament, in the Courts and even at the UNHRC in Geneva.
In fact, speaking in Parliament after a visit to Geneva on 25th October 1990, he boldly proclaimed, “if the government is going to deny human rights, we should go not only to Geneva, but to any place in the world, or to hell if necessary, and act against the government. The lamentation of this country’s innocents should be raised anywhere.” On the same day, he said, “I took the wailings of this country’s mothers. Do I not have the freedom to speak about them?”. At another point he was arrested at the airport for trying to take 533 documents to Geneva containing information on thousands of disappearances and his fundamental rights case was heard at the Supreme Court.
Not only did Mahinda voice their sorrow, he also succeeded in getting the world to act.
Soon after his visit, the international community imposed conditions on aid. In the same Parliamentary debate quoted above, he boasted, “We asked the donors countries as to why conditions cannot be imposed when giving aid. That was the request we made. It is what has been fulfilled today.” These words speak for themselves and there is no need therefore for me to recount Mahinda’s words and action after he became President, to demonstrate what a hypocrite he has become.
- See more>>>
