President rules out racist politics, defends justice probes and security crackdown

PRESIDENT Anura Kumara Dissanayake yesterday told Parliament that Sri Lanka’s present and future political agendas “will not be written on the basis of racism”, warning that defeated political forces are seeking to manufacture communal tensions as other lines of attack against the Government lose traction.

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President Anura Kumara Dissanayake

Speaking during the debate on the expenditure heads of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Security, the President said opportunistic groups were attempting to turn recent incidents, including the dispute over a Buddha statue at a Trincomalee coastal site, into “old racist dramas” despite the underlying administrative and legal issues being addressed.

He said he had instructed the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security to submit a report on the Trincomalee incident and outlined the sequence of events leading up to the confrontation. According to the President, the site in question had been operated as a canteen despite a previous permit issued in 2014, and the Coast Conservation Department had ordered the removal of unauthorised structures. An appeal to the Environment Ministry failed, and a further extension sought by monks to go before the Court of Appeal expired on 14 November, two days before tensions flared.

Dissanayake said the Buddha statue was temporarily moved to the police station for security reasons, but was later returned to the site with security provided, to avoid the next flashpoint becoming a confrontation between police and nationalist groups. The matter is now before court, with an interim order preventing both new construction and the demolition of existing structures

until the land is properly surveyed and demarcated between the Coast Conservation area and the temple.