In a veiled warning to the Maithripala Sirisena government and the international community, the Chief Minister of Sri Lanka’s Tamil majority Northern Province,  C.V.Wigneswaran, has said that any delay in devolving power to the Tamil-speaking provinces will exacerbate the Tamil problem.

But if justice is done to the Tamils speedily, using the current favorable circumstances in Lanka, the community will be encouraged to continue their political journey to find an amicable solution, he said.  

The Chief Minister was speaking at Mulliwaikkal where the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was slain,  and thousands of Tamil civilians were killed in the Lankan military’s final and decisive assault on the LTTE in May 2009.

“Without delay we must work towards the all important goal of maximum devolution for the Tamil-speaking people. Delay would change the dimensions of the problem further,” Wigneswaran said, after lighting lamps in memory of the dead.

About 250 people were present at the simple function on the beach. The Sirisena government had deviated from the Rajapaksa   regime’s  policy of preventing the Tamils from mourning their war dead, though the ban on commemorating the LTTE, a banned outfit, continued.  

Wigneswaran said that Lanka’s majority (Sinhalese) community has been in the habit of making promises to the Tamils when they come to power but only to disregard them after they settle down in office.

“This must not be left to continue. The government, together with the international community, must come to a decision regarding the political aspirations of the Tamil-speaking  people. This,  in turn, could usher in peace and dignity among the various communities in Sri Lanka,”  he said.

Expressing disappointment at the “delays and postponements” at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in regard to the Tamils’ persistent demand for an inquiry into the “war crimes” allegedly committed by the Lankan armed forces, the Chief Minister said that justice must be done to the innocents speedily as “justice delayed is justice denied.”  

“It is not punishment only for the perpetrators, that we seek. Truth must be told. This is why our Northern Provincial Council passed the Resolution on Genocide unanimously, and made the world take note of what actually happened,” he explained.
(The New Indian Express)