External Affairs Minister G L Peiris spoke to an all-party Parliamentary delegation in the UK regarding the unfavourable travel advisory released by the FCO on Sri Lanka.
Peiris told the British MPs:
“Go wherever you want in the country and see for yourself. We believe that transparency and visibility is the right approach to dispel the falsehoods that are told about the country by those who wish to spread ill-will.
“British companies should not miss out on this great opportunity to be part of the new renaissance,” ignoring the fact that the Sinhala nationalist ‘renaissance’ is exactly what the British had warned tourists against.
Peiris talked about the ‘enormous sums of state funds that had been poured into the [North and East]’, he is not cited to have elaborated on the budget assigned to Sinhala Buddhist colonisation in the region.
“Sri Lanka has not got credit for all the good things it has done since the war ended. Unfortunately sections of the Diaspora that cannot accept the military defeat of the LTTE are now conducting a campaign to vilify Sri Lanka and harm it economically by trying to disrupt tourism and trade.”
