By M.R. Narayan Swamy, IANS
New Delhi : Britain is looking for a “regime change” in Sri Lanka because it favours the opposition United National Party (UNP) over the present ruling party, the head of the island’s peace secretariat has said.
“They would be delighted if there was a regime change,” Rajiva Wijesinha, secretary general of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), said while hitting out at sections of Western human rights groups and other interest groups.
Speaking to IANS here during a three-day visit, Wijesinha was particularly critical of the Europeans and singled out Britain. He praised the US approach towards Sri Lanka and at the same time urged India to do more to end his country’s nearly 25-year-long ethnic conflict.
“At one stage they (Britain) would have liked to replace the Norwegians,” the peace facilitators, said Wijesinha, 52, a politician-cum-academic who took charge of SCOPP in June, succeeding Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona.
Wijesinha said Britain had taken the lead in undermining Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse, a brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. The younger Rajapakse heads the country’s war machine against the Tamil Tigers.
“One of the main problems they have is they still hanker after the UNP,” he added, referring to Britain, which in recent times has displayed active interest in trying to defuse ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka.
“They would be delighted if there was a regime change… People think it is on the cards now.”
Asked if he really meant that Britain was working towards toppling President Rajapakse, he answered: “They would prefer it… They don’t like the status quo now.”
Wijesinha has in recent times taken an aggressive stand against Western human rights groups that have flayed Sri Lankan authorities for a variety of rights violations including killings, disappearances, arrests and mass displacement of civilians.
“What I see is a concerted campaign to attack the Sri Lankan government on the human rights issue, with a particular thrust to impose an external authoritative mechanism,” he said.
Referring to specific reports from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Gareth Evans of the International Crisis Group and also the Human Rights Watch, Wijesinha asked: “My point is what is the reason for all this?”
He said some Western rights groups – as opposed to Sri Lanka’s University Teachers for Human Rights “for which I have the highest regard” – were acting in concert with the UNP and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Wijesinha added that the LTTE, which has suffered military reverses in the eastern province, would like to undermine the government on the issue of rights abuses. “This is where there is a congruence in (their) positions.”
The peace official said that most Sri Lankans wanted India to be more closely associated with the co-chairs group of countries overseeing the island’s now battered peace process – the US, Japan, Norway and the European Union.
“India should do more,” he said while pointing out “fatal flaws” in the 1987 India-Sri Lanka pact that sought to end the ethnic conflict.
“Successive Sri Lankan governments have rightly understood that any solution should be in consultation with India.”