Reuters: War crime investigations backed by some Western countries and the United Nations will exacerbate the differences between Sri Lanka’s two main ethnic groups instead of uniting them, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said on Monday.

As Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, oversaw the defeat of the separatist, predominantly Hindu Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) by the Government military in a 26-year war.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the most influential Government officer in the Rajapaksa Government, has been accused of committing war crimes in the final weeks of the conflict ended in May 2009. He has denied all the allegations against him.

A UN panel has said around 40,000 people, mostly ethnic minority Tamils, were killed in the war’s final phase. Families in the former northern war zone still complain of thousands of enforced disappearances during that time.

Gotabaya made his comments four days after the UN Human Rights Council said Sri Lanka must make more progress towards meeting commitments to establishing a credible investigation into alleged war crimes during the country’s civil war.

The United Nations originally asked Sri Lanka to have foreign judges run the war crime probe focussing particularly on the last few days of the conflict. But President Maithripala Sirisena later said he would not agree to having foreign judges.

“How can you talk about investigations and foreign judges at the same time bringing these communities together?” he told a Foreign Correspondents Association of Sri Lanka late on Monday.

“By trying to do these things, you only try to bring people apart. If you think like that, there won’t be reconciliation at all. After a war, what can we do? Going back and harping on these things will never bring communities together. That will widen the gap.”

He also said that when Tamils talk about war crime probes, ethnic majority Sinhalese speak of the massacre of Buddhist priests and police and the horrors they experienced during the war, and that could slow the post-war healing process.

The Government has already launched some related investigations into alleged war crimes, but ethnic-minority Tamils have complained about the sluggish pace of probes.

Former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Government rejected visas that would have allowed UN investigators to visit the island nation.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 67, also denied allegations that he was involved in maintaining death squads, in attacks on journalists, and in some financial misappropriation during the war.

Under the new Government, he is facing police and financial crime investigations.

As Defence Secretary, he was the highest-ranking civil servant in Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry.

Gota does not rule out entering politics; studying Trump

Denying the corruption and war crimes allegations against him, Sri Lanka’s former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday hinted at a possible entry into active politics in the future, The Hindu newspaper reported.

“I have not decided yet,” he told foreign correspondents in Sri Lanka, without ruling out the option. A few of his supporters have been floating the idea of his presidential candidacy in 2020.

“If I can do something for the country, I will do that. I have that capability and I have proved it — whether during the war or in urban development. I did what nobody had done,” said the brother of ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who led the armed forces against the LTTE.

He was willing to work with a leader whose policies were agreeable, he said.

Observing that he had never been a politician, unlike his family members who had been in politics since 1935, he said: “But Donald Trump has come from [business]. We have to see.” Asked if he considered the US President a model, he said: “Yes, I am looking at him and studying him.”