UNP welcomes Govt. stance

11 May 2011 11:33 am

The main opposition UNP today welcomed the statement made by the SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena that one should work closely with the UN when dealing with the advisory panel report.

UNP MP Lakshman Kiriella told a news conference today that the statement made by Mr. Sirisena is welcomed as this is something which his party had stressed recently after the Darusaman report was published.

Mr. Kiriella however said the government is not handling the issue in an effective manner. He therefore said it is unwise for the government to get all local bodies and the provincial council to condemn the panel without sending Sinhalese and Tamil copies of the report to these bodies. “How can one condemn a report without reading it?,” he asked.

He said the report had not even been presented to Parliament yet.

The UNP MP explained that the panel report had turned out to be a partial one because of the wrong policy followed by the government. He therefore explained that there would have been two global views on the war in Sri Lanka if the government saw to it that its views and the views of the security forces were included in the report.  Besides he said things would have been different if the media was allowed to be independent. (Yohan Perera)