Land and Police powers should be given to North - Rathana Thera

Land and Police powers should be given to the people of the Northern Province, said MP Athuraliye Rathana Thera today.

A national policy should be adopted before the lands are given, as the poor deserve the lands

Addressing the inaugural conference of the Sri Lanka National Council, he said that some MPS were constantly claiming to make a new Constitution to resolve the National issue -- which they define as Northern people’s land issues and Tamil-speaking police in their areas. “We, too, agree on giving land and police powers to the Northern community. A national policy should be adopted before the lands are given, as the poor deserve the lands, not the politicians or any other wealthy men who claim them,” he said. The Thera said that though former Prime Minister D S Senanayake had distributed Mahaweli lands, no other politician had done anything similar. He also said that the armed forces should be kept under the Central Government and administrative powers could easily be transferred to the North.

“Instead of the khaki-uniformed colonialist police personnel in High Security Zones, we could simply deploy police officers clad in white uniforms in the Northern areas without firearms. The war is over. Therefore we can give the Tamil people a police force with civil administrative powers,” he said.

He said that there was no need for policemen carrying weapons in the North, as they were only needed to prevent thefts and other minor offences. Meanwhile, he said that the issues which were being highlighted in Parliament to satisfy a few persons could be resolved easily without going in for a referendum or changing the Constitution -- which would waste more time and money.