Wednesday, 18th March 2014
Meera Srinivasan
AP
Sri Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena.File photo
Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena will soon convene a national-level meeting aimed at addressing the fisheries conflict with India.
Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena will soon convene a national-level meeting aimed at addressing the fisheries conflict with India.
The decision comes after Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan, in an executive committee meeting chaired by Mr. Sirisena, emphasised the need to build a national consensus on addressing the conflict.
After the Tuesday meeting, Mr. Sampanthan told The Hindu that he conveyed to the committee the concerns of northern Sri Lankan fishermen whose livelihoods were in danger on account of Indian trawlers allegedly poaching in Sri Lankan waters.
“The bottom trawlers cause immense damage to the fishing nets used by our Northern fishermen, and also scoop out all the marine resources from the seabed,” Mr. Sampanthan said. The TNA has recently been more vocal in raising the issue and senior leaders consulted fishermen leaders. While the governments made arrests once in a way, a long-term, sustainable solution remained elusive, Mr. Sampanthan said. “We want to build national consensus on the matter to put it across to both the central and state governments on the other side,” he said, referring to the engagement with New Delhi and Tamil Nadu, where the trawlers reportedly originate from.
The meeting, scheduled to be held on March 31, is aimed at defining Sri Lanka’s position on the issue, and examining ways to engage with India on the matter. “Bottom-trawling has to be stopped,” Mr. Sampanthan said, explaining that northern fishermen were returning to the sea only after the end of the war in 2009. The Sri Lankan Navy, he said, had prevented them access to the sea on account of the armed conflict between Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE.
The meeting, chaired by Mr. Sirisena, will be attended by the Northern Province Chief Minister, Fisheries Ministers from the Centre and the province, TNA parliamentarians representing Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu and leaders of fishermen’s associations.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told NDTV that Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, on her recent visit to Colombo, had assured them that New Delhi would try to stop the trawlers from crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line. His remarks that the Sri Lankan Navy was justified in “shooting fishermen” found poaching had sparked a row
