The National Shoora Council (NSC) has called on the government to formally recognise Sri Lankan Muslims as the country’s earliest major resistance to LTTE separatism, welcoming the pledges President Anura Kumara Dissanayake delivered at the 17th National War Heroes’ Day commemoration on May 19 at Battaramulla, The Island reported.
In a statement, the NSC endorsed the President’s assurances that Sri Lanka would not be allowed to suffer another war, that there would be no space for racist extremism, and that the country belonged equally to all communities. The body — chaired by former ambassador to Iran M.M. Zuhair PC — said state remembrance of the war’s end should extend beyond the armed forces to include the wartime President and citizen contributions, particularly those of the Muslim community, alongside the aid provided by Iran and Pakistan.
The statement set out the historical case. By 1989, it said, Muslims firmly resisted the LTTE’s attempt to establish a separate Tamil state — making them, in its framing, the first major community-level obstacle to division on ethnic lines. In October 1990 the LTTE expelled the entire population of roughly 90,000 Northern Muslims with two hours’ notice. In the East, the group massacred more than 1,000 Muslims in 1989-90 and seized large tracts of farmland, including the killing of 147 worshippers at Kattankudy mosques and another 121 at Eravur, the diversion and execution of about 35 returning Haj pilgrims at Kurukkalmadam, and the killing of 69 farmers at Alanchipothana. Malay Muslims served in key positions across the armed forces and in deep-penetration units, the council added.
The NSC also urged recognition of Iran and Pakistan. The national War Heroes’ Day ceremony saw AKD lay a wreath and address the nation, making it the setting that prompted the NSC’s formal response. It cited Iranian assistance under President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in 1999; a US$525 million Iranian loan secured during President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s November 2007 visit for the Uma Oya hydropower and irrigation project; a US$105 million Iranian commitment for rural electrification; and a US$650 million rolling crude-oil facility on four-month deferred terms from January 2008. “These were vital contributions that helped Sri Lanka during the key stages of the war, that must ungrudgingly be recognised by President Dissanayake,” it said.
The 2.1 million-strong Sri Lankan Muslim community, the NSC concluded, “truly deserves to be duly recognised and honoured, perhaps next in line to the country’s armed forces.”
