The visiting Member of the European Parliament and of\u00a0the\u00a0Friends of Sri Lanka group in\u00a0the\u00a0European Parliament Hon Geoffrey Van Orden met with the Leader of the Tamil National Alliance Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0yesterday in Colombo.<\/p>\n
Apprising\u00a0the\u00a0Honorable Member of the recent political developments in\u00a0the country Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0pointed out the importance of the reconstitution of the Constitutional Council through which the independence of the judiciary has been preserved which was clearly demonstrated during the recent\u00a0crisis situation. Further answering a question Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0expressed that \u201cour support to reinstate the Government was on Principle. The country was in distress\u00a0and there was no\u00a0Prime Minister or a\u00a0Government.We\u00a0had to support to reinstate the Government to prevent further damage being\u00a0done to the economy and for normalcy in\u00a0the functioning of institutions in this Country\u201d said Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan.<\/p>\n
Briefing on the new Constitutional making process TNA Spokesman and Jaffna District Parliamentarian Mr.\u00a0Sumanthiran\u00a0said, the draft Constitution which was done by a panel of experts which was to be presented in Parliament in 7th of December 2018, will be presented before 4th of February 2019.<\/p>\n
Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0pointed out that the new Constitution must ensure that the Country is undivided and indivisible, further it should also ensure that there is a genuine power-sharing arrangement which allows the people and the\u00a0regional \/\u00a0provincial governments to exercise powers\u00a0in regard to\u00a0the matters that are connected to their day to life. Further speaking Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0said, when a New Constitution is introduced if we see it as a reasonable and acceptable one, our people will accept it.<\/p>\n
Ever since the enactment of the 13th amendment to the Constitution much work has been done to improve the constitution under every successive Leader of this Country said Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan. During President\u00a0Premadasa\u2019s\u00a0time, there was the Mangala\u00a0Munasinghe\u00a0select committee report, during President Chandrika\u00a0BandaranayakaKumaratunga\u2019s tenure the 2000 proposal, during President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s time the\u00a0All Party\u00a0Representatives Committee and Professor\u00a0Tissa\u00a0Vitharana\u2019s\u00a0proposal. All these proposals were a\u00a0substantial improvement to the constitution said Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan. Over thirty years much work has been done and now we have the opportunity and we must grab it for the betterment of this country said Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan. \u00a0Further, Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0said \u201cI am\u00a0being\u00a0reasonably\u00a0optimistic because this is my country and I want this country to\u00a0prosper, therefore I cannot be\u00a0pessimistic.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question\u00a0in\u00a0regard to\u00a0the activities of Diaspora Members Mr.\u00a0Sumanthiran\u00a0said, the extreme elements in the diaspora are numerically very small and if there are proper power-sharing arrangements\u00a0in Sri Lanka large\u00a0section of the Diaspora is willing to support such process he added. Attitudes and actions of an extremist section of\u00a0the\u00a0Diaspora will not have any influence on our decisions said Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan. Further, he said, \u201cat every local election our people have consecutively and firmly voted out such extreme elements\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the land issues, Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan\u00a0pointed out \u201cwe are against the state-sponsored settlement schemes which are done deliberately to change the ethnic composition in the regions, we are not against natural migration of people. The Tamil speaking people have an inherent\u00a0interest to preserve their land and their culture said Mr.\u00a0Sampanthan.<\/p>\n
Expressing his views Hon Geoffrey Van Orden said he expected more foreign support towards reconciliation efforts in Sri Lanka post-2009, and that he is not happy that then-President\u00a0Mahinda \u00a0Rajapaksha\u00a0did not pursue\u00a0efforts\u00a0to achieve true reconciliation in this Country.<\/p>\n
The cordial meeting lasted more than one hour.<\/p>\n
Courtesy: TNA Official Website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The visiting Member of the European Parliament and of\u00a0the\u00a0Friends of Sri Lanka group in\u00a0the\u00a0European…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-srilankan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}