Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Behind Campaign to Abolish 13th Constitutional Amendment Says Mangala Samaraweera

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Zacki Jabbar

The on-going campaign to abolish the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was led by Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera said yesterday.

Addressing a press conference in Colombo, Samaraweera said that he did not think President Mahinda Rajapaksa wanted to go along with the plan hatched by Gotabhaya and supported by parties such as the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and National Freedom Front (NFF).

Elected representatives of the people in the ruling UPFA had been sidelined and the Defence Secretary with scant regard for the Establishment Code, was interfering in all areas of political governance with the support of extremist elements, MP Samaraweera noted.

Instead of winning over the hearts and minds of the Tamils and other minority communities, Gotabhaya had given leadership to nationalist forces, he alleged adding that such immature conduct and lack of foresight could result in a second Eelam war.

Samaraweera warned that the next uprising would spring not from among youth with cyanide capsules in the Wanni marshlands but right in the heart of Colombo, unless a genuine effort was made to unite all communities after a near three decade war which had resulted in large scale death, destruction and misery.

The majority of SLFP parliamentarians did not agree with the proposed amendments to 13-A. It was the SLFP under former President Chandrika Kumaratunga which proposed Regional Councils for the North and East and Mahinda Rajapaksa who was the Prime Minister then did not oppose it, Samaraweera observed.

The MP said that the whole campaign against 13-A was based on the false premise that devolution would lead to the division of the country.

The need of the hour was not to scrap devolution, but reintroduce the 17th Amendment which was aimed at good governance. Unless the independent Public, Police, Elections, Judicial and Bribery and Corruption Commissions were established with a sense of urgency the unprecedented crime wave would engulf the entire nation, MP Samaraweera warned.

COURTESY:THE ISLAND