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Politics

Sri Lanka says Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UK Visit Postponed

Sri Lanka today said President Mahinda Rajapaksa visit to United Kingdom had been postponed till December and not cancelled, dismissing reports that the trip may have been scrapped over fears that he could face arrest.

Reacting to an Indian press report that the president had cancelled the visit fearing arrest, a Sri Lankan external affairs ministry official said the report was “false and misleading.”

The report had said that the Lankan president had scrapped the visit following fears that he might be arrested for alleged war-crimes under British law.

It also said, that certain Sri Lankan Tamil organisations were planning to move court for his arrest for alleged rights abuses in his successful military campaign which ended 30-year of separatist campaign on the island.

The report cited the case of arrest by Scotland Yard in 1998 of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London for atrocities against Spanish civilains during his 17-year-rule.

It also referred to the refusal by US authorities to grant a visa to the chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi over similar human rights allegations.

“The report is not only false but misleading”, Bandula Jayasekera, the director of publicity, in the external affairs ministry said.

Without mentioning the dates of the visit Jayasekera said it had only been postponed till December.

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Domestic

A point of view by a peace loving Sri Lankan Tamil

A point of view by a peace loving Sri Lankan Tamil having spent 30 years in Sri Lanka and the later 30 years in the U.K.

This is my personal view of Sri Lankan Tamils: Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Vaico, Nadumaran all are dancers to the changing tunes of the Tamil Nadu Politics poor Sri Lankan Tamils are used as Pawns for their political board game.

The truth is as follows as I was a Sri Lankan Tamil born and brought up in Sri Lanka grown with the Sinhalese, Muslims and Jaffna Tamils.

I am a Colombo born Tamil; I know my father came from Tamil Nadu in 1912. My mother also Colombo Tamil, born in Gampaha and her grand parents may have come from Tamil Nadu. My mother’s side all were Ceylon Government Railway (CGR) workers, under British administration and my father had a Government service with the CGR for 40 years in Colombo.

After my father’s retirement from Railways we lived in Kandy, I was a Trinitian went to Trinity College in Kandy. I had very good Sinhala and Muslim schoolmates and friends. We had good Teachers from Batticaloa, Jaffna and a very strict Sinhalese Principal. Sri Lankan Government services not oppressed me.