Addressing the HRC, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Plantation Industries cautioned that in several countries the LTTE network has engaged in criminal activities such as extorting money from the Tamil diaspora.
"I would hasten to strike a note of caution against being lulled into a sense of complacency as we have learned that the unlawful activities of the group [LTTE] continue to this day," he said.
Describing few incidents in some countries where the authorities have arrested the LTTE members engaging in unlawful activities, the Minister said the complete removal of Emergency Regulations in Sri Lanka must be considered cautiously.
"Against this backdrop clarion calls for complete roll back of our emergency regulations must be considered," he said adding that the Sri Lanka has taken extensive measurements since the end of the conflict to repeal nearly 80 percent of the provisions in the Emergency Regulations.
The bare minimum that remains are required as safeguards against such ongoing unlawful activities of the LTTE, the Minister told the HRC.
He said the Sri Lankan government is continuing to closely monitor the situation in order to repeal the remaining provisions of the Emergency Regulations in a manner that does not compromise national security. Sri Lankan authorities will be the best to make that judgment to conclude the Emergency Regulations in an appropriate and timely manner, he added.
Speaking of reconciliation process, Minister Samarasinghe said the government and the mainstream Tamil political parties are fully engaged in a dialogue. The Tamil Political Parties' Forum is continuing the dialogue with the government on economic development and legal and constitutional reforms, the Minister said.
Apprising the HRC of the situation in the North regarding the war-displaced, the Minister said there are about 12,000 displaced persons are remaining in three camps in Vavuniya and Jaffna and those will be resettled as soon as the demining of their home areas is completed.
Minister Samarasinghe said Sri Lanka's steadfast commitment to further the promotion and protection of human rights was enshrined in the proposed National Action Plan which will be approved by the Cabinet and implemented in near future.
The Bureau of the Commissioner-General of Rehabilitation had been further strengthened with a full time Commissioner-General vested with the special mandate of rehabilitating and reintegrating 11,696 ex-combatants, including 594 child combatants, the Minister informed the Council.
Sri Lanka had started to reap the dividends of peace exemplified by a large number of development programmes to enable the economic uplift of the people, which would then underpin and sustain their eventual political empowerment, Minister Samarasinghe told the HRC.
No comments:
Post a Comment