Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said he is hopeful of resolving the problems faced by ethnic Tamils in the country, as he announced the appointment of a committee to find ways to integrate the Indian-origin workers in the plantation sector into the society.
Wickremesinghe's remarks came on Sunday during an event in Colombo to accept a consignment of medicine donated by the Union Territory of Puducherry at the request of Ceylon Worker's Congress (CWC), a leading political party representing the Indian-origin Tamils in the Central Province.
“While some of the Tamils of Hill Country origin had integrated successfully into the Sri Lankan society, some have failed and measures would be taken to assist them to do so,” he said.
Wickremesinghe said that the government will appoint a committee to seek how best to integrate the Tamils of Hill Country origin further into the Sri Lankan society.
He said that these issues would be gradually resolved in the coming years as the government resolves the whole ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.
The President recalled the Sirimalwatte-Shastri Pact between the then Indian and Sri Lankan leaders under which some of the Indian-origin plantation Tamils were repatriated.
The pact was signed on October 30, 1964 between the then Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka and India - Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Lal Bahadur Shastri. It was a significant agreement in determining the status and future of people of Indian origin in Ceylon.
Wickremesinghe recalled that it was the Ceylon Workers Congress founder the late Saumyamurthi Thondaman who had obtained citizenship for some people who should have gone under Srima-Shastri Pact but decided to stay back in Sri Lanka.