Foreign Ministry censors statements made by the Finance Minister

For long years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been sending clippings from the local newspapers on a daily basis to all Sri Lanka Missions overseas. However, since of late, the Missions have come to notice that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs leaves out statements made by the Minister of Finance from these daily news clippings.

The Finance Minister recently issued two statements on matters related to human rights and the resolutions adopted by the Human Rights Council on Sri Lanka. One statement that was carried in the press on 20th March was in response to a statement made by the Leader of Opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

In the second statement that was carried in the press on 02nd April, the Minister of Finance said that he felt that it is his duty, as the person who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs when the original 30/1 resolution was adopted on 01st October 2015, to respond to some of malicious arguments being made and misrepresentation of facts relating to the recent 40th session of the Human Rights Council.

The censorship by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has led some to wonder whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not want its Missions to find out the truth about important matters pertaining to the human rights of all citizens as well as matters pertaining to Sri Lanka’s engagement with the world which is the primary task of the network of Missions overseas. Some have been wondering whether the Foreign Ministry knows that the 52 day political crisis has ended. Perhaps the Minister of Foreign Affairs Tilak Marapana and his Secretary Ravinatha Aryasinha think that the Foreign Ministry belongs to an imaginary SLPP Pohottuwa Government, and the 52 days have not quite ended for them as yet.