The LLRC had made an inadvertent omission from its final report presented to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and tabled in Parliament on Friday, its Chairman C.R. de Silva PC told the Sunday Times yesterday.
He said the commissioners had discussed at length their main focus of the need to "develop a Sri Lankan identity" during their deliberations and regretted they had not included in their report the recommendation to do away with the classification of 'Race' in all official government forms such as passport applications etc. The only requirement should be to identify 'Nationality' and not 'Race', he pointed out.
Mr. de Silva said "the Commissioners regretted this omission" and that it was his personal view that "even at this late stage" he should write to President Rajapaksa drawing his attention to this fact even though the Commission itself was now functus (not legally functioning). He said the only time 'Race' would be relevant would be for a census. "Apart from that, the requirement to identify a citizen by race would mitigate against the development of a Sri Lankan identity," he added. |
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