Protection of Tamils is my duty and responsibility: Rajapaksa

Rajapaksa was delivering the opening address at the Parliament session when he sought to extend an olive branch to Tamils by beginning the address in Tamil,even as the Lankan Army released pictures of Prabhakaran’s body with bullet injuries in the head.

“Protecting the Tamil speaking people of this country is my responsibility. That is my duty. All the people of this country should live in safety without fear and suspicion. All should live with equal rights. That is my aim. Let us all get together and build up this nation,” he said in his brief remarks in Tamil.

Rajapaksa said at this victorious moment “it is necessary for us to state with great responsibility that we do not accept a military solution as the final solution.

“Similarly,when we see the sad faces of the people who have been fleeing Puthumatalan area,we can realise that a document offered on a tray as a political solution could also not be the final solution.”

“When we accept the responsibility for the people who have been liberated,we receive many proposals from various countries and institutions. They ask us to look after our own Tamil people well,” he said.

Rajapaksa said it was necessary to give the Tamil people the freedoms that are the right of people in all other parts of the country.

“Similarly,it is necessary that the political solutions they need should be brought closer to them faster than any country or government in the world would bring.

“However,it cannot be an imported solution. We do not have the time to be experimenting with the solutions suggested by other countries. Therefore,it is necessary that we find a solution that is our very home,of our nation,” he said,adding Sri Lanka expected cooperation for it from the international community and not obstruction.

The President called on the business community to make a commitment to invest in the north and east. “What we need is not advice,but cooperation to bring a better life to these people. I believe that the world community will also extend that cooperation to us.”

He also appealed to all those who left Sri Lanka due to terrorism,especially the Tamil people,to return. He urged engineers,doctors,accountants and other professionals living in various countries abroad to return to Sri Lanka and contribute to its development.

“As we have been victorious in the battle to defeat terrorism,we should also take to the required successful end the struggle to build our land. It is necessary for us to take the required clear decisions for this. We must now be ready to direct our motherland to that new era of national revival,” he said.

“I must specially mention here that this great battle for national revival will be waged with the aim of raising the lives of the Tamil people who live in the North and East of our land,too,” he said.