Calls from different sections of the international community, “are unhelpful at best, if not inimical to our immediate needs,” Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lankan High Commissioner in India said.

North Sri Lanka needs a “home-grown solution… We know better than anybody the horrors the country faced,” he said at an interactive session after his lecture, Sri Lanka and its Relations with India in all its Aspects, at the Bangalore International Centre. “The time for international intervention has not come.”

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission will submit its report in November, the High Commissioner said, adding that much of the allegations of human rights violations made in television documentaries and reports are “concocted” or cannot be verified.

Earlier, in his address, the High Commissioner said: “While many among the Tamil community overseas have contributed towards the rebuilding efforts in the North Sri Lanka, some, who primarily live in Western countries and a few in Tamil Nadu, have rejected this call for help. They cite human rights concerns…. [and] seek retribution for the military defeat.”

Mr. Kariyawasam said that just two years after the armed conflict of May 2009, “the investment in defence has borne results”. The rapid economic growth is evident, he added. Inflation is down to single digit, unemployment is below 5 per cent and poverty is down from 15.2 per cent to 7.6; and the country is now categorised as a middle-income country by the International Monetary Fund.

“Our focus is to capitalise on post-conflict opportunities to ensure a better future for the people.” The conclusion of the conflict has created space for new opportunities and further expansion of areas of cooperation between India and Sri Lanka.

“India today is Sri Lanka's largest trading partner, and the largest number of tourists is from India.”
It was “the refusal of the LTTE and their sympathisers to follow the path of the ballot and instead to resort to the bullet for 30 long years” that led the Government of Sri Lanka to ultimately defeat the LTTE militarily, Mr. Kariyawasam said.

Another sensitive issue that the two countries are engaged in resolving is the matter of fishermen crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) in the Palk Bay, he said, adding that Sri Lankan fishermen “now protest that their resources are being plundered by southern Indian fishermen crossing the IMBL.”