Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe assures Tamil minority parties to review proposed anti-terrorism act

They want New Delhi to convince Wickremesinghe to fully implement the India-mooted 13th Amendment of 1987. India has been pressing Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment, brought in after the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement of 1987.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday assured the Tamil parties that the proposed anti-terrorism law would be reviewed, amid stiff resistance from the opposition parties as well as the minority communities against the act that would replace a draconian counter-terrorism law.

The new Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) will replace the much-maligned Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of 1979, which was introduced as a temporary arrangement to counter the campaign of separatist violence by the Tamil minority militant groups in 1979.

Wickremesinghe gave the assurance during a meeting with the Tamil minority parties ahead of his planned July 20-21 visit to Delhi, his first visit to India after being appointed President of the cash-strapped country last year following the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a people's uprising in July.

He discussed the proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill with Tamil parties, informing them that the drafting committee would review and re-gazetted the bill, a press release from the President's Office said.

In March, the government gazetted the existing bill, which came under widespread local and international criticism.

The new bill was seen as even more draconian than the PTA, which was used as the main tool to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) armed separatist campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years.

In 2021, the EU Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a repeal of the PTA-- the action was linked to the continuation of the Generalised System of Preference (GSP) + trade concession for Sri Lankan exports.

The Tamil parties were also informed of the setting up of an interim secretariat for the truth-seeking mechanism to probe rights abuses by the army during the civil war with the LTTE, the press release said.

Since the end of the nearly 30-year armed campaign, the setting up of a truth-seeking mechanism was seen as a major reconciliatory action.

Wickremesinghe also told the Tamil parties that the bill to set up the Office of National Unity and Reconciliation would be presented in Parliament shortly.

The President's visit to India comes in the backdrop of communications by Tamil parties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They want New Delhi to convince Wickremesinghe to fully implement the India-mooted 13th Amendment of 1987. India has been pressing Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment, brought in after the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement of 1987. The 13A provides for the devolution of power to the Tamil community.

Full implementation of the 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka's Constitution will facilitate unity among all the communities in the island nation so that they live as one.

Sri Lanka has had a long history of failed negotiations with the Tamils.

An Indian effort in 1987, which created the system of a joint provincial council for the Tamil-dominated North and East, faltered as the minority community claimed it fell short of full autonomy.

The LTTE ran a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after the Sri Lankan Army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

According to Sri Lankan government figures, over 20,000 people are missing due to various conflicts, including the three-decade brutal war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east, which claimed at least 100,000 lives.

International rights groups claim at least 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the final stages of the war, but the Sri Lankan government has disputed the figures.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)