Lanka says sorry for evicting Tamils
Afp, Colombo
Sri Lanka's prime minister yesterday apologised to ethnic minority Tamils for evicting them from the capital, promising there would be no repeat of the controversial operation. "It was a big mistake," Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told reporters here, referring to Thursday's expulsion of hundreds of Tamils at gunpoint from low-budget Colombo hostels. Police had justified the operation by arguing that Tamil Tiger rebels had been using the hostels to plan attacks, but the government has come in for fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights groups. "I express regret and apologise to the Tamil community on behalf of the government," Wickremanayake said, rejecting claims by the country's police chief Victor Perera that the Tamils had left Colombo of their own accord. The premier discounted the defence offered by the police inspector general and said the government stand was that the police and military action was "wrong" and that minority Tamils had a right to live anywhere they pleased. "They (the police) asked people whether they want to go back to their village or not only after bussing them (256 kilometres, 160 miles) to Vavuniya," Wickremanayake said. "We want to tell the Tamil people that everyone has a right to live anywhere," he said, adding that the government was considering compensation to 376 men, women and children who were evicted. Some of these people have since returned to the capital in buses provided again by the state after the Supreme Court ordered an immediate halt to the evictions, which were described as "ethnic cleansing" by rights groups. The premier declined to name the individual in the government who had ordered the unprecedented move, but said an investigation was under way and that officials held culpable will be disciplined. "This is not the way to deal with such a problem," he said of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) operatives. "We have legal avenues to deal with wrongdoers." Perera was earlier Sunday quoted as saying that the Tamils had volunteered to quit the city of 650,000 people. "He (the police chief) may have said it in the morning but I am now telling you (in the afternoon) what the government position is. It is final. We accept what happened was wrong," the prime minister said. "That is why I am expressing regret and apologising on behalf of the government." The premier acknowledged that people in the capital face inconvenience as a result of regular checks and road blocks, but said such measures were needed to prevent Tamil Tiger bomb attacks.
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