Wartime Abuses: Minister and Coalition Government

wartime abuses: Ravi Karunanayake, who headed the finance ministry, was named the new foreign minister, according to Metro News. Samaraweera was instrumental in Sri Lanka's co-sponsoring of a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council that called for investigations into the alleged wartime abuses with international assistance. In the first Cabinet reshuffle of the coalition government since 2015, President Maithripala Sirisena replaced Mangala Samaraweera as foreign minister and gave him the portfolio of finance and mass media minister. However, he was accusedby nationalists of paving the way for outside interference. However,it is unclear if Samaraweera's removal as foreign minister is a sign of a government policy shift toward post-civil war reforms and reconciliation. Sirisena had distanced himself from the promise to involve international judges and prosecutors in a 2015 resolution at the Human Rights Council and said that he would not prosecute government soldiers for war crimes. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.