President Mahinda Rajapaksas roadmap for finding a 13th Amendment-plus political solution will take the Tamil question in Sri Lanka to a Parliamentary Select Committee, which will look into it and propose suitable constitutional amendments, and then on to Parliament. Meanwhile, local elections in the Northern Province, which are being held on Saturday, would be followed by a Provincial Council election.
Asked about the absence of an enduring political solution 26 months after the war with the LTTE ended, the Sri Lankan President told me over a breakfast meeting at Temple Trees in Colombo: “I have asked my party and others to propose a Parliamentary Select Committee to look into a political solution, any amendments to the Constitution. Whatever the Parliamentary Committee recommends to me, I will accept – and ultimately it has to go to Parliament.”
Example from India
He reiterated his long-held view that police powers and land “were not subjects for the Provincial Council.” He added that he had seen “what has happened in India, in the recent Mumbai bomb attacks. How slow it [the police and security response] was, you know, with all the restrictions, going to the Centre and coming back with orders from there. So security matters [must be] with the Government [of Sri Lanka].” The Hindu