COME HOME’ HE SAYS
*Sri Lanka today a land at peace
*Transformation of life in north
External Affairs Minister Prof G.L. Peiris pleaded with ‘Tamil refugees’ in Australia who fled the war, to come home, Australian newspapers reported.
The minister said people going to Australia are not refugees but “economic refugees.”
Prof Peiris told Fairfax Media in an exclusive interview that Sri Lanka is ‘now perfectly stable, with an economic boom in the once devastated northern Tamil regions running at three-times the national average.’
But he warned smugglers sending record numbers of Sri Lankans by boat to Australia were making “unconscionable profits” and cared nothing for the people they put on unseaworthy vessels.
“Sri Lanka is today a land at peace, it is a perfectly stable society. The northern province is developing at about 22 percent, when the average population of the country is between six or seven percent,” Professor Peiris said.
“There has been a total transformation of life in the north. There is absolutely nothing to run away from.”
A campaign is under way in some quarters calling for a boycott the Commonwealth heads of government meeting to be held in November in Colombo – but Australia has said it will attend, Fairfax News reported.
Prof Peiris met with Senator Carr, Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor, Defence Minister Stephen Smith and deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop this week and opened a new Sri Lankan consulate in Melbourne on Friday.
But Prof Peiris said that the people who had come on boats to Australia were not refugees but economic migrants, and claims of abuse had no relationship to the reality on the ground in Sri Lanka.
No comments:
Post a Comment