Lanka won't allow outside 'interference' in its affairs: PM

As the United Nations chief planned to set up an advisory panel on alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka, Premier Ratnasiri Wickremanayake has accused "certain" western nations of interfering in his country's affairs and said government would only "bow down" to people's decisions.

"Certain European countries are under the impression that Sri Lanka is still a colony," he said, addressing an election rally at Puttalam in northwest Sri Lanka on Monday. These nations "should not teach us how to rule this (Sri Lanka) country," the prime minister was quoted as saying by the state-owned media.

"We are an independent and sovereign nation and we have self respect as a nation," he said. The island nation's government would only "bow down to the decisions of its own people," Wickremanayke said. "Sri Lanka is a signatory of the Vienna Convention in this respect (non-interference in internal affairs of other countries). It is the masses who would take decisions of the incidents taking place in the country," he said. These nations should not "meddle in the internal affairs of our country," he told the rally, ahead of general elections, scheduled for April. Sri Lanka has never interfered in the internal affairs of any country, the Prime Minister said. "We have established a very strong diplomatic service which is entirely based on the principle of non-intervention of internal affairs of the host country," he said.

His remarks came weeks after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proposed to establish a panel of experts to advise him on alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka during the war against the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam.

Wickremanayake also sought public support to form a strong government after the parliamentary polls. He said "the conspiracies hatched by certain elements locally and internationally can be defeated" by such a strong government. Wickremanayake said that there is no further room for "local and foreign terrorist shadows" in Sri Lanka.