Ready to give Lanka more time on UN deal: TNA

Tamil National Alliance’s senior legislator Abraham Sumanthiran told Colombo-based foreign correspondents that Sri Lanka must necessarily be allowed more time to honour its commitments for rights accountability in terms of the UNHRC resolutions.  In a joint resolution in 2015 at the UN Human Rights Council, Sri Lanka had promised to set up a judicial mechanism to prosecute those accused of human rights abuses during the last phase of the war with the LTTE. The government also promised a new Constitution that covers the island nation’s varied ethnicities and religions.

“Eighteen months have passed and they (government) have not implemented obligations that they voluntarily undertook to perform,” Sumanthiran said, adding even a single legislation for the setting up of the Office for Missing Persons had not been brought into operation.

Sumanthiran’s comments came as the government was expected to ask for more time to implement the resolution in the ongoing 34th session of the UNHRC in Geneva. “Each of those commitments must necessarily be implemented. In such a situation our position is that the commitments made by Sri Lanka voluntarily can’t be allowed to wish away and say that the time has lapsed and we don’t have to accomplish any of this anymore,” Sumanthiran said. 

On Tamil nationalist groups’ criticism that TNA is going soft on the government, Sumanthiran said, “Those who say Sri Lanka should not be given any further time are playing straight into the hands of those who want to avoid accomplishing those undertakings.” He said further time can be given but that must be under strict conditions.

Sri Lankan foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera in his address at the UN Human Rights Council’s session on Tuesday said the government’s resolve to deliver justice to the victims of the country’s three-decade long civil war remains firm and the government is working towards making the reconciliation process with Tamils a success. 

Samaraweera said formulating a new Constitution remains imperative for non-recurrence of the armed separatist conflict. Sri Lanka faced three consecutive adverse UNHRC resolutions since 2012. 

In 2014, the resolution prescribed an international investigations into human rights abuses blamed on both the LTTE and the government troops.  Since the change of the government in January 2015, the rights body has shown leniency in allowing the new government more time to get its reconciliation house in order. 

According to the UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by the security forces during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime that brought an end to nearly three-decades long civil war in Sri Lanka with the defeat of LTTE in 2009.