President Mahinda Rajapakse told a delegation of visiting Indian lawmakers that troops could not be pulled out despite the end of the decades-long Tamil separatist war in 2009. “The president explained that there are troops elsewhere in the country as well,” spokesman Bandula Jayasekera told AFP. “They are not only in the (Tamil-dominated) north.” The visiting delegation was the first team of Indian MPs to visit the island since Sri Lankan forces crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending an ethnic conflict which had claimed up to 100,000 lives.
Indian opposition leader Sushma Swaraj and the cross-party delegation met with Rajapakse on Saturday.
Visiting Indian lawmakers had urged Sri Lanka's president to investigate alleged human rights violations during the country's civil war, resettle displaced civilians and end the militarization of former war zones, the group said. Swaraj, who led the multiparty delegation from India's Parliament, said the group traveled to former war zones and spoke to ethnic Tamils who were displaced when the war ended in 2009.
She said that during their four-day visit that ended Saturday, the 12 lawmakers met with Rajapaksa and other officials, as well as leaders of opposition political parties. They urged them to investigate disappearances and abductions, return private lands seized by the military and restore civilian administration in the Northern Province, the heartland of the ethnic Tamil minority which bore the brunt of the war.
Last month, the U.N. rights council urged Sri Lanka to implement its own war commission report that includes proposals to investigate alleged abuses. Sri Lanka responded that it still needs to decide which proposals it will implement.
Among the visiting MPs were representatives from Tamil Nadu state, whose 60 million population share close cultural and religious links with Sri Lanka’s Tamils.
