The Government today accused the US Embassy in Colombo of pursuing a political agenda extremely detrimental to Sri Lanka’s interests.
“When the government is doing everything in its power to restore democracy following three decades of war, the US embassy is all out to undermine it,” Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was quoted as saying by the Government Information Department.
He was responding to a US statement issued immediately after the Provincial Council elections held in the Central, North Western and Northern regions.
The US Embassy issuing a statement about the elections has said that a process free of violence and intimidation in the Northern Province is required for greater civilian administration and to help further the reconciliation process four years after the war.
The statement has said that elections provided a starting point for that process, and democracy is not simply about elections, and more must be done to ensure that Sri Lankans of all communities can live with peace and dignity that they deserve.
The Defence Secretary has said that he hadn’t ever come across an assertion which was as unfair as the one that democracy was not simply about elections.
He has said that Sri Lanka is a multi-party country, and even at the height of the war, Sri Lanka conducted elections, the Government Info. Department reported.
“He has emphasized that it is nothing but unfair to blame the government merely because those in the South backed by the US Embassy cannot win elections at any level. Rajapaksa has said that some bankrupt political parties also echoed the assertions of the American Embassy.
“Expressing his opinion further he has questioned whether America and some European countries which criticized the 18th Amendment to the Constitution which annulled would dare to challenge the right of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right to lead Germany for a third term having won overwhelmingly the recent German elections.
“The Defence Secretary has also pointed out that the Western powers were silent when the LTTE and its proxies ordered Tamil speaking people to boycott the presidential election on Nov. 17, 2005, and the TNA would still have been a prisoner and a TNA-run NPC would never have become a reality if Prabhakaran had survived the war,” the report said.
