Sri Lanka health minister laughs off war crimes

The Sri Lankan health minister laughed off a question about investigating war crimes when speaking to media in Jaffna today.

Asked for his thoughts on future war crimes investigations by Tamil journalists, Rajitha Senaratne, said “war crimes? No we don’t agree with war crimes - nobody is there.”

The minister further responded “in that case who will investigate about the LTTE war crimes” before laughing and saying “are there any leaders? We have to ask them.”

Instead of pursuing accountability, the government will focus on a settlement and devolution the minister said.

“We will go for a good settlement for equal status for all the people in this country,” he said “and enough powers to the provincial councils… to have the people of the area to look after the administration and improve the development in these areas.”

The minister also said they would “give all the rights what the Sinhalese have to the Tamils and the Muslims and Burghers.”

According to the minister, the Sri Lankan government will focus on achieving “equal rights to make a Sri Lankan identity” instead of “going through the history, what has happened and all that.”

????? ?????????? ???????????.
????? ?????????? ??????? ??????????????? ??????? ??????????? ????? ????? ????????#lka pic.twitter.com/ectKlYpsyh

— Vigneswaran Kajeepan (@kajeepanv) April 3, 2017

Click link to watch video of Rajitha Senaratna

 

Add new comment

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button