The Sri Lanka government deeply regrets the baseless comments and is perturbed by such statements being made by the Norwegian Minister against a friendly government, said a release by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protesting against a statement by Eric Solheim published in the Norwegian language Aften Posten.
Eric Solheim had been commenting about the Channel 4 UK news item broadcast recently alleging extra judicial killings by the Sri Lanka Army.
“The utterances of Minister Solheim have led the Government of Sri Lanka to reflect on his possible partisanship in the facilitatory role,” said the strongly worded statement by Sri Lanka referring to the role played by him in the Norwegian brokered peace accord that became highly unsuccessful.
The Channel 4, that has been broadcasting a series of items like women in IDP camps being raped without substantiating them using unnamed sources in the most recent item cleared itself by stating that it is not sure of the authenticity of the video footage, and said it was submitted by a group calling itself ‘Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka’. Channel 4 did not name the journalists.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told a Sri Lankan TV channel, ““We are expecting an immediate response from the Royal Norwegian Government regarding this statement from one of its Ministers,” The following is the full statement issued by the government.
“The Government of Sri Lanka refers to the comments made by the Minister of Environment & International Development of the Norwegian Government, Erik Solheim, published in the ‘Aftenposten’ newspaper website of 28 August 2009.
“The Sri Lanka government deeply regrets the baseless comments contained therein and is perturbed by such statements being made by the Norwegian Minister against a friendly government.
“It is unbecoming of Minister Solheim to attribute blame on alleged atrocities, contained in an unsubstantiated video footage, without any recourse to an exchange of views and total disregard to the position of the Government of Sri Lanka on the issues in question.
“The criticism by him of a democratically elected Head of State, who is carrying out a vibrant agenda to safeguard the rights of the people of Sri Lanka, while having eliminated the scourge of terrorism, is unacceptable. It would be recalled that Norwaycontinued its facilitatory role in the then peace process, even after the election of His Excellency the President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The utterances of Minister Solheim have led the Government of Sri Lanka to reflect on his possible partisanship in the facilitatory role.
“The Government of Sri Lanka hopes that a formal response would be received from the Norwegian Government with regard to the attributed comments by a Minister of that Government.”