Observing that Tamils in Sri Lanka have suffered for long, the United States on Monday asked the Rajapaksa government, which has emerged victorious in the recently held Parliamentary elections, to use the occasion to accelerate the reconciliation process.
"The results of these elections really open the way for President Rajapaksa to take important action to unify the country and get it back on a path of growth. It's a particularly important opportunity now to make progress on these important issues of reconciliation, power-sharing and accountability," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake told media persons.
Referring to the overwhelming majority the party of Mahinda Rajapaksa has got in the Parliamentary elections, the complete result of which is yet to come, Blake said: "It is important for the (Sri Lankan) government to take these steps now. The (Rajapaksa) government has a very significant majority. They probably will be able to get a two-thirds majority when all the dust has settled. That gives them the power to amend the constitution and proceed with a lot of these steps that I've just described."
"Thus it is an important opportunity that should be seized by the Rajapaksa government," he said.
Blake said the need now is first to restore the political rights of Tamils and to take steps toward reconciliation.
"The Tamils in particular have suffered a great deal from some of the human rights abuses of the last several years. So we believe it's very important for that to be part of the reconciliation process that will occur," he argued.
Blake said one of the noteworthy things about the recent elections was that hard-line Sinhalese nationalist parties took a severe beating in these elections.
"I think that's a quite telling and important result, because these particular parties had opposed any kind of power-sharing with the Tamils and with the Muslims," Blake said.
