News: Committee on Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has decided in-principle to appoint a committee to study the root cause of the ethnic conflict, lessons learnt by the island-nation since sections of Tamils took to militancy in a bid to gain their rights and aspirations, and the challenges faced by the country since the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last May. Disclosing this at a news conference here on Friday, the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, said the objective behind the move is to understand the causes behind the unrest among the minorities, conditions leading to the birth of the LTTE and how the island-nation can ensure that such a situation does not recur.