By Skandha Gunasekara Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) stalwart and Minister of Ports and Shipping, Mahinda Samarasinghe, commenting on the recent statement made by President Maithripala Sirisena at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), told The Sunday Morning that the international community had acknowledged the progress made by the Government with regard to reconciliation and furthering democracy; and that Sri Lanka needed the freedom to carry out the process of post-war reconciliation and accountability without interference from foreign nations. Excerpts from his interview: The President during his speech at the UNGA called on world leaders not to exert influence on Sri Lanka and that Sri Lanka could resolve its own problems. Does this mean that we no longer need assistance in human rights? The world must look at Sri Lanka in a very different way, as it has now been over 10 years since the end of the civil war and we have made much progress. In the last three years we have established several independent commissions including the National Police Commission, the Right to Information Commission and the National Elections Commission. We have also established the Office of Missing Persons to look into those who have disappeared or gone missing during the war. The world must accept that we are moving forward and there is real political commitment to go the distance with issues such as human rights and accountability. The President himself once pointed out to me that reconciliation is not only for the North but also for the South. There are deep wounds in the South as well as in the North. We are prepared to face these challenges; and if we require assistance, we will ask for such help from the international community. Human Rights activists and advocates are unhappy with the Government’s progress of Human Rights in Sri Lanka. Does that mean we run the risk of sanctions due to non-compliance with the agreement between Sri Lanka and the UN Human Rights Commission? I don’t think we have to fear sanctions as many in the global community have acknowledged our progress. In fact, the United States of America had proposed to give us a grant of $ 480 million. This shows us that America has accepted our Government’s journey for reconciliation. What areas of Human Rights have we progressed and in what areas can we do more? We have been continuously giving back land to the people. Large tracks of land, particularly in the North, have been returned to the citizens in the area. There is intensified economic development taking place in the North and East. The Government has allocated large sums through the Budget and Ministries for rapid development of the North and East. We have also established the Office of Missing Persons; a Cabinet Subcommittee on Missing Persons has also been established. Furthermore, investigations into crimes committed during the war are being conducted as we speak; a good example being the case of the 11 youth who went missing in Trincomalee in 2009, which is being thoroughly investigated with a suspect in custody. Also, one must take note of the fact that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) votes with the Government during Budgets. This demonstrates the progress the Government has made. For the first time in history, the TNA sitting in the Opposition is voting with the Government on various national issues. With regard to what more can be done, we can do more in all the areas I just mentioned. The icing on the cake would be the completing on the Constitutional reforms process. The ethnic conflict and separatist war originated with the language parity issue. Has the Government fully implemented the equal use of Tamil in the public sector? I would say we have not done enough in this regard. There has definitely been progress from the past but more can be done. For example, in the estate sector there are very few in official positions that can speak Tamil, but a majority living in there are Tamil speakers. This is not good. Tamil is one of the official languages of this country. There are constant improvements taking place, but this issue must be given more attention. In the North, the Police force must represent the ethnic proportion in that province. Unfortunately, when you go for recruitments, there are not many from that province that comes forward. A lot more needs to be done about the issue of language parity. Are you not concerned that ethnic minorities are more and more gathered around ethnic minority based political parties and moved away from main national parties? This is not taking place in the SLFP. In fact we see the opposite happening. We are seeing a lot of minorities joining the SLFP because of President Sirisena and that this year’s Local Government election showed us that. It is usually the UNP that attracts the minority, but we are seeing more coming to us. Maybe one should ask if the UNP is losing minority support. The minority seems to like President Sirisena’s policies and the steps taken by this Government for the minority population. Moving on to your subject Ministry, what is the current status of the Hambantota Port? The Hambantota International Port Group and the Hambantota International Port Services have taken over operations and are concentrating mainly on the vehicle transportation business. More ships are calling at the port, in fact the number of ships have trebled. The bunkering services are to be started soon. Next year we hope to start the third phase development of the port. The third phase must be completed for the port to fully operate. For this purpose the China Merchants Port Holding Company is expected to invest $ 400 million by the beginning of 2019. The Colombo Port was rated the fastest growing port in the world in a recent poll. How is the on-going expansion process faring? I submitted a cabinet paper last week to operationalize the East Terminal under the Sri Lanka Ports Authority. It must be noted that we are not going for Public-Private Partnership for the operations of the East Terminal at the Colombo port. It will be solely handled by the Port Authority. Until the procurement process for machinery and equipment goes through, I have proposed that we call for international tenders to lease such equipment. This way we can start operations instead of waiting three months for the procurement process to be completed. The East Terminal must begin operations soon, as there is severe congestion at the Port. We hope to get Cabinet approval by next month and begin operating the East Terminal soon after.