No country has ended terrorism in three years, says Rajapaksa

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday said his government ended a 30-year campaign of terrorism in just three years which “no country has been able to achieve”. Inaugurating the China-aided express highway to the Colombo international airport, Rajapaksa said that he was able to end a 30-year campaign of terrorism in just three years. [caption id=“attachment_119759” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Reuters[/caption] “No country has been able to achieve this,” he said. Rajapaksa reiterated that the country has achieved peace and there was no bloodshed or terrorist activity in the country after May 19, 2009, the President said, referring to the death of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. He appealed to the people to give their fullest cooperation to the development programme being implemented by the government for the benefit of the future generation. Rajapaksa said that at a time when the government is making effort to develop the country, certain elements are making various allegations against it and therefore, the government has to spend much precious time to file a response in Geneva to the allegations. “We have to go and answer in Geneva every six months. They only talk of the last days of the war. They don’t talk about the 30 years where bombs exploded very often,” Rajapaksa said addressing the gathering in Colombo. The 28-kilometre road inaugurated on Sunday has been built at a cost of $300 million and is Chinese funded. The road cuts down the travel time between the capital and the airport to 20 minutes from previous 90 minutes in slow moving traffic. Rajapaksa’s Geneva reference was to the UN Human Rights Council where two resolutions, in 2012 and 2013, have been passed against Sri Lanka. The expressway was inaugurated as part of the island’s preparations to hold the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) here next month. PTI