Day: 16 September 2015

by Zacki Jabbar The Tamil National Alliance says that it is for maximum devolution within a united and not unitary state. Deputy General Secretary of the TNA M. A.Sumanthiran speaking to The Island yesterday over the telephone from Geneva, where he was attending the ongoing 30th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council(UNHRC) said that he had been misqouted as saying that TNA was for devolution within a unitary state. “That is not correct , the TNA having taken history into consideration believes that maximum devolution within a united…

Internal probe in the war crime allegation would not provide a solution to the Tamil problem, only an international probe would provide a satisfying solution to the war crime allegation, said Prasanna Indrakumar, Deputy Chairman of the Eastern Provincial Council at an event held last week in connection with Batticaloa Sathurukondan massacre remembrance day. He said several massacres had taken place in the Eastern Province. Several commissions were appointed to inquire into these massacres. The commissions had not provided any satisfactory solutions to these crimes and human rights violations. Some…

COLOMBO: The United Nations report on war crimes in Sri Lanka has recommended the establishment of an internationalized Special Court to try cases of war crimes committed by both the Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The report which was released at the 30 th.Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Wednesday, identified “grave violations” between 2002 and 2011, which “strongly” indicated that “war crimes and crimes against humanity” were most likely committed by both sides to the conflict. The report…

Moments after he delivered a ground-breaking speech before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday (14), Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera told the Daily FT in an interview outside the Council chamber that he was “committed to the hilt” to deliver justice to victims in Sri Lanka.  Addressing the opening session of the Human Rights Council’s 30th Session, the Minister unveiled an ambitious Government plan for transitional justice, laying out the first tangible framework to address serious allegations of war time abuses Sri Lanka has committed to before the…

On the eve of a delayed UN report into the bitter conflict, Tamils are on the march calling for justice from the international community “I’m looking for my daughter, my daughter-in law and two little grandchildren who disappeared during the war,” says Sivaneswari, rubbing her arthritic legs as she rests after a five-day protest march across the northern tip of Sri Lanka. “I have faith they are still alive.” Like Sivaneswari, 63, most of the bedraggled Tamil protesters from Sri Lanka’s biggest ethnic minority community, holding up photographs of their…

NO COUNTRY that emerges from civil war can truly heal until the dead have been accounted for and steps toward reconciliation have been made. Sri Lanka is no exception. Nearly three decades of civil war ended in 2009, when the Sri Lankan military launched a final offensive against rebels known as the Tamil Tigers, who ruled a separatist enclave for years. Today, the war is over but the peace has yet to begin. More than 146,000 people remain unaccounted for. The Sri Lankan military continues to occupy the land that…