[lkdood]

UNP Matara District MP Mangala Samaraweera said that it was President Mahinda Rajapaksa who was then an opposition MP during the 1988/89 period who first took up the issue of human rights violations in Sri Lanka before the UN Human Rights forum.

“I prepared the documents and it was (President) Mahinda Rajapaksa who took the relevant documents to Geneva,” MP Samaraweera said during the adjournment debate on the Geneva resolution today.

H said the very people who are being branded as traitors’ and LTTE sympathizers on state run media such as Sunila Abeysekera and Sunanda Deshapriya were the ones who accompanied the then MP to Geneva.

“As he had no accreditation, it was the Quakers peace Organization that got him the relevant accreditation,” he revealed adding that this organization was one that supported the LTTE.

“I fully endorse of his actions. Not only did he (President Mahinda) tell me then but he also said it in Parliament which is in Hansard that to take up the issue of human rights violations, not only would be go to Geneva but we would even go to the other end of the earth,” MP Samaraweera said.

The UNP MP also said the Government should be proud of the LLRC report.”We have had many presidential commissions in the past but this is the only one that was come with a comprehensive report and recommendations,” he said.

He urged the government to endorse its recommendations promptly to avoid international isolation.”We live in a global village. No country can live without fulfilling its international obligations,” he added.

ST