Modi’s call for 13A implementation: UNP willing to assist government

We will not play politics with national issues

By Zacki Jabbar-May 28, 2014

Urging President Mahinda Rajapaksa to fulfil his written assurances to the United Nations and India to fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, the UNP said yesterday that unlike the SLFP it would not play politics with national issues or set the country on fire.

Vice Chairman of the UNP Lakshman Kirielle MP addressing a news conference in Colombo, said that even the new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told Rajapaksa in New Delhi on Tuesday, that he should without any further delay devolve power to the North and East of Sri Lanka in terms of the 13th Amendment.

"When the UNP tried to implement the 13th Amendment in 1987, the SLFP set the country on fire by damaging public property worth billions of rupees. On returning to office in 2001, we once again attempted to devolve power, but the SLFP was back on the streets accusing us of dividing Sri Lanka.

The current crop of rulers had learnt a bitter lesson by trying to play ‘tricks’ with the international community including India by giving bogus pledges which had worked with a majority of Sri Lankans, the MP said. "When President Rajapaksa asked the former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about two months back why his country had not opposed the US led UN resolutions against Sri Lanka, the latter replied that he would have done so, if the former had implemented at least 10 percent of his pledges to the UN and India."

Kirielle accused President Rajapaksa of having assured New Delhi in early 2009 that he would implement 13A Plus, fearing that India would intervene in Sri Lanka’s war.

Shortly after the war had ended on May 18,2009, the governments representative Dayan Jayathillake went to Geneva and appealed to the UN not to pass strictures on Sri Lanka since it would without fail fully implement 13A. It was a time buying exercise which backfired badly on the country, MP Kirielle observed.

The UNP would wholeheartedly help the government devolve power, Kirielle said, pointing out that there was no need for sitting through another Parliamentary Select Committee process to discuss issues which had been debated for decades, since the solutions were clear to any person with an iota of common sense.