Lanka reassures support for Palestinian statehood

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has reassured Sri Lanka’s support for the freedom struggle of the Palestinian people who on Friday marked the United Nations Palestine Day.

The President, who had for a long time been a patron of the Sri Lanka-Palestine Solidarity Committee, in a message said Sri Lanka had stood by Palestine and would continue to support the Palestine people to achieve statehood. Last year, the UN General Asembly granted Palestine non-voting observer state membership.

The President’s message was read out at a ceremony and public lecture held at the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute in Colombo on Wednesday.

The lecture was organised by the Sri Lanka Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Delivering the keynote address, political analyst and former diplomat Dayan Jayatilleke said Sri Lanka and Palestine were two sides of the same coin.

He said both Palestine and Sri Lanka had been victimised and continued to be victimised by the West.

Dr. Jayatilleke said British Prime Minister David Cameron who raised concerns about the situation in Sri Lanka’s north must visit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and see for himself the difference between how Sri Lanka treated its Tamil population and how Israel, an ally of the West, treated the Palestinians.

“There are no apartheid walls in Sri Lanka’s north, there are no settlements in Jaffna,” Dr. Jayatilleke said.

Ministers Tissa Vitarana, Athauda Seneviratne and former Minister and Solidarity Committee President Imthiyaz Bakeer Markar also addressed the gathering.