Marking the first independence day after nearly 24 year of civil war, the president of Sri Lanka appealed to the Tamils, the ethnic group, to unite in order to relief the nation of its tensions.

In a ceremonial speech here on Thursday at the central city of kandy, Sri Lankan president RajaPaksa called on the Tamils to cooperate and hence work with the government.

Speaking in Tamil, he said “Let’s solve our problems ourselves through discussions”.

On the other hand in London, a senior member of British Tamils forum, Suren Surendiran, brushed off the claims made by Rajapaksa to resolve ethnic tensions.

Since the re-election in the month of January, this was the first speech of Rajapaksa made to the public. He lost in northern and eastern areas where Tamils are in large number.

Earlier, more than 5000 strong supporters of Fonseka took the the Colombo streets in order to revolt against the results of election. Fonseka called out to the crowd in the same rally saying “Rajapaksa has grabbed and stolen your right to elect a president”.

These allegations of fraud in election results have been clearly rejected by the election commissioner, Dayananda Dissanayake; although blaming the media for violating the voting guidelines.