Mr. P.B.

Abeykoon
Secretary to the President
Colombo 01
Mr. E.M.S.B. Ekanayake
Secretary to the Prime Minister
Colombo 07
Cc: Secretaries of Ministries,
Mr R.Sampanthan, Opposition Leader
Mr M.A.Sumanthiran, Spokesman for TNA
Dear Mr Abeykoon and Mr Ekanayake
Sri Lanka Generating Consensus among the Sinhalese to resolve the 68-yr
ethnic conflict
Please share the following with the President and the Prime Minister of the
Coalition Government:
Please share the following with the cabinet of Ministers and the parliament and
the Sinhala masses:
Several attempts to resolve the ''textbook case'' (explanation of our conflict by
international researchers) of ethnic conflict in the last 6+ decades failed due to
the lack of consensus among the Sinhalese. Most attempts have been thwarted
by ethnic outbidding between the UNP and the SLFP.
Let us visit the last attempt of finding peace:
The peace process of 2002/3 failed because the then-Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremasinghe did not carry even the senior parliamentarians with him. The
Opposition tried to sabotage it and ordinary Sinhalese citizens were out on the
streets opposing it. The Prime Minister was only keen on getting foreign aid by
pretending to be interested in *peace.
Austin Fernando, the then-Defence Secretary, later told LLRC in 2010:The senior
parliamentarians kept quiet when the Opposition opposed the peace process. In
the future if we are going to do anything of this nature we must develop a
strategic vision and consensus from day one
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxbk4wYolphwYWU1MWUyM2YtYmMwOC00ZWRj
LWEyZDEtOGJjOTIzMDEyYjVj/view
We are very thankful to the President for what he told the visiting head of IFRC
two weeks back(3March) including: ''It is the people in the North and East who
suffered most due to the protracted conflict and reconciliation should originate
from the people in the South and it should be inculcated in their mindset'' http://www.colombopage.com/archive_16A/Mar03_1457014215CH.php
We appeal to the President and the Prime Minister to tell the Parliament and the
various media and most of all the Sinhala masses what the Minister of Foreign
Affairs told UNHRC on 14September 2015 ( similar, but less assertive, statements

were made by him at USIP, 25Feb 2016 and Chamber of Commerce, 8Mar 2016)
including ''.As a Government that is responsible and accountable to her people,
the National Unity Government remains firm in its resolve to do right by the
people of the country, not in the least because of assurances given to the
international community at any point in time, but because this is the only path
available to ensure justice, remove the causes of terrorism and achieve a durable
peace for the long-suffering people in our country'' - Speech by Minster of
Foreign Affairs at UNHRC, 14.09.2015,
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lankas-response-to-unhrc-thefull-text-of-foreign-affairs-ministers-speech-today/
Concrete actions of various ministries will alone ensure justice and remove
causes of terrorism. This will result in peace and reconciliation. One cannot DO
reconciliation.
Many well-wishers around the world are represented by the well-known peace
optimist::
Erik Solheim has said: this is the best opportunity to bring about a lasting
solution to the countrys ethnic question'', 8 March 2019,
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/sri-lanka-ready-for-peacesays-erik-solheim/article8328808.ece
Let 2016 be the turning point for the ethnic minorities and Sri Lanka as a whole:
. the minority vote came unconditionally to him, and what is more, the
common opposition was careful to studiously avoid any reference whatsoever to
the demands of the minorities let alone be seen to be promising anything to
them, so as to ensure that sufficient numbers of the majority deserted
Rajapaksa. All that the minorities are left with after the 2015 presidential election
is the goodwill and decency of the new President and his government to treat
them with some sort of respect, and when and if possible, to address their
political and constitutional problems.'' - THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY AND THE
SRI LANKAN STATE: MYTHS AND REALITIES, AsangaWelikala, 20 January 2015,
http://groundviews.org/2015/01/20/the-executive-presidency-and-the-sri-lankanstate-myths-and-realities/
Yours sincerely
P.Selvaratnam
Women for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka
Dual citizen in Sri Lanka and the UK