By Rajesh Sundaram | Headline Today
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Talking to Headlines Today exclusively in Colombo, Rajapaksa said. "This (the resolutions in the assembly and statements by J. Jayalalithaa) must be for her to gain political advantage...It is not reasonable, because in Sri Lanka regardless of being Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim, we are Sri Lankans. We are more worried about our citizens than anyone else. This (the resolution and statements by Jaya) is without knowing facts."
"If she is so concerned about the welfare of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, the first thing you know what she must do...they must stop Indian fishermen coming into Sri Lankan waters and fishing in areas predominantly dominated by the Tamil fishermen of Sri Lanka.
"When it comes to that, they do not talk about the welfare of the Tamil people...people just talk about welfare of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, but when it comes to the real thing they are not shouting. This is what Ms Jayalaithaa should address first if she is very keen on the welfare if the Tamil people of this area. This is what she must do," Rajapaksa said.
He advised the Tamil Nadu chief minister to focus her attention instead on the need for rehabilitation of the Tamil people in the war ravaged areas of Sri Lanka.
Rajapaksa said, "Now we have to do a lot of things to develop and improve the infrastructure and help the people to resettle and restart their lives. This is what is required. This is what we have to show to the Tamil Nadu government. If they are interested in the welfare of these people, it is useless calling for international investigation. What does that bring to the people? It is much better to understand ground realities."
The US state department has warned recently that an international mechanism should have to be brought in to investigate war crimes in Sri Lanka if it failed to investigate these charges through a credible process internally within a reasonable period of time.
The UK and some other European countries concur with this view.
It has been over two years since the 30-year civil war on the island ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels.
The UN estimates that over 40,000 Tamil civilians died during the last stages of the war. The Sri Lanka army is accused of firing shells and bombing areas designated "Safe Zones". The LTTE is accused of using civilians as human shields.
Rajpaksa says there is no justification in calls for an international probe.
He adds, "How can an international mechanism kick in? This is a sovereign country, and we have done nothing wrong. And it is very unfair to tell that, and that is why when they are doing that, we also have all the others. This is not the international community. This is a wrong description. This is just some countries in the international community may be doing this. We have strong backing from the rest of the world, starting from Russia and China and I am sure of it from India, Pakistan and a lot of the countries from Africa, Middle East and South East Asia. That is the international community. A few people in the world can't say they are international community."
Speaking about further devolution of power to the Tamil minorities on the island nation Rajpaksa said there was little scope to go beyond the current levels of devolution.
"The existing constitution is more than enough for us to live together. I don't think there is any issue on this more than that. I mean this was given as a solution for the whole thing with the discussion of these people. I mean now the LTTE is gone, I don't think there is any requirement. I mean what can you do more than this? This gives power at a lower lever. Even now we had the local government elections. Then the president will have very soon provincial elections and appoint chief ministers and ministers. So devolution-wise I think we have done enough. I don't think there is a necessity to go beyond that," the defence secretary added.
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