[But more than a month
after taking over this iconic home after a shocking electoral triumph, Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview in his office here Saturday
that while he has managed to reset relations with the United States, India and
China, he has only just started to grapple with the profound issues of releasing hundreds of political
prisoners and handing back thousands of acres of land seized
mostly from minority Tamils during this country’s long civil war.]
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Paintings at Temple
Trees, this country’s White House, are still leaning against walls waiting to
be hung, and the gated grounds are no longer teeming with guards and stewards
who served the home’s previous occupant like supplicants at a royal court.
But more than a month
after taking over this iconic home after a shocking electoral triumph, Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in an interview in his office here Saturday
that while he has managed to reset relations with the United States, India and
China, he has only just started to grapple with the profound issues of releasing hundreds of political
prisoners and handing back thousands of acres of land seized
mostly from minority Tamils during this country’s long civil war.
His first two weeks in
office were taken up by a visit from the pope and the urgent need to produce a
budget, he said.
“So it’s only been three
weeks,” he said. “We just started.”
That is why he still has
only the vaguest idea of how many political prisoners are still in Sri
Lanka’s jails and how many acres of land can easily be returned to
those from whom they were seized, he said.
A tentative list of
prisoners has already been created, he said.
“I just want it to be
verified twice over from my end before we say here’s the final list,” Mr.
Wickremesinghe said. “We should have it by March. And if there is any secret
camps, you can close it down and get these people.”
Tens of thousands went
missing during the civil war ending in 2009, including people who were killed
in battles as well as those said to have been shot in custody. But there have
long been rumors of secret camps holding thousands of detainees, a notion Mr.
Wickremesinghe sought to dispel.
“There are a few
hundreds, I think, not thousands,” he said. “There are people who are missing
whose names are not found anywhere,” which means they either “are not among the
living or they left the country. That’s all.”
Some Tamil activists have
become increasingly unhappy in recent weeks as a result of what they see as
delays in releasing prisoners and returning seized lands. The Tamil-dominated
Northern Provincial Council unanimously passed a resolution earlier this month
seeking an international investigation into the alleged genocide of Tamils
during the country’s civil war. The use of the term “genocide” angered many in
the new government, and it came just before the United Nations Human Rights
Council agreed to delay the release of a
report into human rights violations during the war.
In an interview in his
Colombo home here Sunday, C. V. Wigneswaran, chief minister of the
Tamil-dominated Northern Province, said that he fears the prime minister has
refused to release prisoners because he does not want to anger the Sinhalese
majority ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for this summer.
“I’m talking of a history
of not living up to promises in the past,” Mr. Wigneswaran said. “The prime
minister wants to play for time because the elections are coming.”
Even without a verified
list of prisoners, Mr. Wigneswaran said that dozens who are widely known to be
held for political reasons could be released immediately.
In a separate interview,
Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said that frustrations over the delays
were understandable. “Nobody
seems to know who they are, even those who ought to know,” Mr. Samaraweera said
of the prisoners. “The officials themselves may have been too intimidated to
ask questions about things they ought to know.”
Former President Mahinda
Rajapaksa presided over an increasingly authoritarian administration that many
here refer to as a regime, and its passing has led to a palpable sense of
relief among much of Colombo’s elite, including top business leaders. Among the
happiest are diplomats and representatives for Western nations with whom the
Rajapaksa administration had become combative.
Mr. Wickremesinghe
pledged to return relations with the West to a far happier state. “When I was
prime minister last, we had good relations with the United States, India and
China. The Rajapaksa regime destroyed that. They fought with the West. They
fell out with India. And they thought that China would be their savior,” he
said.
Chinese contractors built
roads and expanded ports during the Rajapaksa administration that were funded
by massive loans. In moves that enraged Indian defense officials, a Chinese submarine
twice paid visits to Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.
The new government has
promised to scrutinize these projects, and Eran Wickramaratne, the deputy
minister of highways and investment promotion, said in an interview at his
stately home here that his initial review suggests some were “highly corrupt.”
Roads that should have cost less than $1 million per kilometer cost more than
six times that much, he said.
Much of that money was
stolen by members of the previous administration and secreted abroad, Mr.
Samaraweera said in an interview in his office in a fading colonial building
here.
“We have already located
over $2 billion dollars” stashed in foreign accounts, Mr. Samaraweera said. “We
are speaking to the World Bank and financial intelligence agencies of several
countries about it.”
The excesses of the
previous administration included a multimillion-dollar expansion of Temple
Trees involving the construction of a 7,000-seat auditorium, three separate
high-tech cabinet meeting rooms and a small kidney-shaped swimming pool.
Mr. Wickremesinghe
happily offered tours of the rarely seen home to visiting journalists in hopes
of further tarnishing Mr. Rajapaksa, whose supporters held a vast rally last
week. Mr. Rajapaksa has been unclear in public statements about whether he will
fight in upcoming parliamentary elections or attempt a political comeback of
any sort.
Mr. Wickremesinghe was
less uncertain about Mr. Rajapaksa’s future.
“I don’t think he’ll
contest,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said. “I know him.”
