{"id":4788,"date":"2015-08-16T07:56:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-16T07:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/?p=4788"},"modified":"2015-08-16T07:57:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-16T07:57:51","slug":"rajapaksa-claims-tamil-leaders-are-dividing-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/?p=4788","title":{"rendered":"Rajapaksa claims Tamil leaders are \u2018dividing the country&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa criticised Tamil leaders for allegdly \u201cdividing the country\u201d in comments made to the BBC, in the run up to next week\u2019s general elections.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Jaffna_map.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-4759\" src=\"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Jaffna_map.jpg\" alt=\"Jaffna_map\" width=\"107\" height=\"138\" \/><\/a>Speaking to the BBC\u2019s Justin Rowlatt, Mr Rajapaksa was asked whether he thought it possible that Sri Lanka would be split under the current government. \u201cYes, certainly because this is the feeling of the people,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Rajapaska went on to criticise Tamil political leaders for remarks made in the run up to the elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean you just listen to the Tamil leaders speeches,\u201d said Mr Rajapaska. \u201cThey have already divided the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the run up to the election, Tamil political parties in the North-East were unanimous in their calls for an international investigation into the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamils during the closing stages of the armed conflict in 2009. Mr Rajapaksa was president and commander in chief of Sri Lanka at the time, overseeing the military assault on the North-East.<\/p>\n<p>His comments come as the Tamil National Alliance\u2019s spokesperson Suresh Premachandran to the BBC that the possibility of an armed struggle may arise in the future, if Tamil rights were not respected. \u201cIf the Tamils cannot enjoy the same rights which the others are enjoying then you know \u2013 you never know what will happen,\u201d said Mr Premachandran.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not a threat,\u201d reiterated the TNA spokesperson, but added \u201cmaybe in the future it might be a reality\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa criticised Tamil leaders for allegdly \u201cdividing the country\u201d in comments made to the BBC, in the run up to next week\u2019s general elections. Speaking to the BBC\u2019s Justin Rowlatt, Mr Rajapaksa was asked whether he thought it possible that Sri Lanka would be split under the current government. \u201cYes, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"views":1038,"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/?author=40"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/?cat=22\" rel=\"category\">ENGLISH NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Sri Lanka\u2019s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa criticised Tamil leaders for allegdly \u201cdividing the country\u201d in comments made to the BBC, in the run up to next week\u2019s general elections. Speaking to the BBC\u2019s Justin Rowlatt, Mr Rajapaksa was asked whether he thought it possible that Sri Lanka would be split under the current government. \u201cYes,&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4788"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4790,"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788\/revisions\/4790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/namathueelanadu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}