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TNA-President meeting pushed to 25th amidst SJB protest

15 Mar 2022

  • TNA slams postponement as evidence of ‘lack of importance given to Tamils’
BY Pamodi Waravita The long-delayed meeting between President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was postponed once again yesterday (15), this time to 25 March, a few hours before 15,000 supporters of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) surrounded the Presidential Secretariat in protest against the President and the Government. “We were ready to meet with the President. Although they gave us no official reasons, the meeting was cancelled today morning (15) and a new date was given for 25 March. This has been delayed for over two years now and the latest cancellation once again shows the lack of importance and interest given to the Tamil people,” Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi Parliamentarian Shanakiyan Rasamanickam told The Morning yesterday. He said that there are strong speculations that the meeting was cancelled due to the protest held by the SJB. “I strongly believe that it was due to the protest. However, we would have been happy to change the place of the meeting. Eight TNA MPs had travelled from outside of Colombo to attend this meeting.” In June 2021, a meeting between TNA Leader MP R. Sampanthan and President Rajapaksa was scheduled to be held at the Presidential Secretariat but was cancelled at the eleventh hour. The TNA at the time said: “The Presidential Secretariat informed us a little while ago that the meeting has been postponed and that a new date and time will be notified soon.” In February, Rasamanickam Tweeted that the TNA’s requests to meet the President by prior appointment have been continuously denied for nearly three years. Nearly 13 MPs representing the Tamil-speaking people held a protest in front of the Presidential Secretariat on 24 February, demanding an audience with President Rajapaksa in order to raise issues about land grabbing taking place in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. However, at the time, the Presidential Media Division, in a statement, said that it is clear that the protest was a “conspiracy to paint a false assumption about the Government in light of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland”. The 49th regular session began in Geneva on 28 February, and an oral update about Sri Lanka was given on 4 March. In September 2021, the President, while in the US to attend the UN General Assembly sessions, extended an invitation to the Tamil diaspora to meaningfully engage with the ruling administration in order to find an internal mechanism as a solution for the issues faced by the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

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