Mass Media and Information Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena

Chairman of Sri Lanka's Sinhala nationalist Patriotic National Movement, Gunadasa Amarasekera says that the government must not implement the resolution passed at the UNHRC on Sri Lanka without a referendum.
The vociferous activist of the nationalist organization linked to the National Freedom Front, a government coalition party, said that the implementation of the UNHRC resolution without a mandate would be a betrayal of the country. Amarasekera, addressing a press conference in Colombo yesterday said the UNHRC resolution and the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) are two different entities. The government can implement the LLRC recommendations but not the UNHRC resolution, the activist said. The UN resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council last month on 'Promoting Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka' calls on the Sri Lankan government to implement the recommendations of the LLRC within a stipulated time frame and take credible steps to ensure accountability for alleged serious violations of international humanitarian laws committed during the final stages of the country's civil war. It also requests the Sri Lankn government of to present, as expeditiously as possible, a comprehensive action plan detailing the steps that the government has taken and will take to implement the LLRC recommendations, and also to address alleged violations of international law.