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‘Eliya’ to enlighten people against the new Constitution: Gota
View(s):A new Constitution or Parliament should not be permitted to reverse the victories achieved by defeating terrorism and reuniting the country as a unitary State, said former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Speaking at the launch of the ‘Eliya’ (Light) organisation in Colombo on Wednesday (6), Mr Rajapaksa further said they decided to bring together professionals from various fields to establish the new organisation, “Our aim is to rally the masses to do whatever is necessary to prevent the introduction of a new Constitution,” he explained.
While acknowledging the present Constitution had its flaws, the former Defence Secretary argued that one can see where the project to draft a new Constitution is headed, when looking at the people who are behind it, and who it was for. “This is for the same group which collected funds for the LTTE and purchased weapons with those funds. They are trying to achieve through a different route, what they failed to achieve through war and terrorism,” he alleged.
He said the new Constitution was being drafted to appease international organisations and foreign govts that tried to prevent the war from being finished, as well as separatist Tamil politicians in the country.
Mr Rajapaksa further claimed they were opposed to the new Constitution, as they had no faith in the Govt that was drafting it.
“For the past few years, the Govt told Commanders of the Armed Forces and the people that it would never allow an Office of Missing Persons to be established. But, it happened in the end,” he pointed out. He further said, though the Govt claimed war heroes would not be harmed, many war heroes who were attached to Military Intelligence units are languishing in prison. “Therefore, we cannot place any trust in such a Govt.”
Manohara De Silva P.C. said the controversy surrounding the new Constitution only came about soon after the 2015 General Election, when the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a Resolution regarding the country. “The Resolution included commitments to immediately implement the 13th Amendment in full and introducing further Amendments to the Constitution to devolve powers,” he stressed.
Stating that the 13th Amendment was designed to divide the country, Mr De Silva said the purpose of the new Constitution was to lay the legal groundwork to implement it in full. Former Ambassador Tamara Kunanayagam said, at the same time that a new Constitution was being discussed, “a plethora of radical reforms” were also being rushed through. “The fact that many of these reforms are being challenged as unconstitutional, indicates that the new Constitution is aimed at making what is unconstitutional today, constitutional tomorrow. In other words, making legal, what is illegal by a simple trick of changing the Law.”
She said, efforts to draft a new Constitution was a project sponsored by the United States and that, through its intervention, what began as an agenda to abolish the Executive Presidency, has become a full-blown reform of the Constitution.
Addressing the gathering, Maj.Gen.(Rtd) Kamal Gunaratne, said he spent 26 years of his 35-year military career in the North and East. Most of the Army Officers who are retired today, had served in the North and East during the war, he noted. “As people who spent so many years with the people in those areas as their liberators, we know what they want. None of them want police powers, judicial powers, power devolution or a separate State. All they want is to live in peace and dignity,” he emphasised.
Maj.Gen.(Rtd) Gunaratne claimed the country’s “stupid rulers’ can’t comprehend that centralising power keeps the country together, while devolution of powers will only lead to separation. Former Central Bank Governor, Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Rear Admiral (Rtd) Sarath Weerasekara, Ven. Prof. Medagoda Abhayatissa Thera were among others who addressed the event.