Day: 28 September 2015

Global Tamil Forum (GTF) spokesman Suren Surendiran told The Island yesterday that the draft resolution tabled at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council fell short of their expectations. UK based Surendiran expressed confidence that the proposed resolution could pave the way for what he called a credible accountability process. Sri Lanka has accepted the resolution, thus ensuring unanimous approval for a series of recommendations, including a Sri Lankan judicial mechanism that accommodated Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorized prosecutors and investigators. Surendiran has sent us the following statement:…

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After a flurry of diplomatic activity in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka has finally been tabled. On September 24, the U.S.-led UN Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution on Sri Lanka was tabled. This would be the fourth HRC resolution passed on the island nation since 2012. The Sri Lankan government has praised the resolution and it appears that the original idea of passing it by consensus will go ahead as planned. The resolution calls for wide-ranging reforms and a domestic accountability mechanism with international involvement.…

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Earlier this month, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its long-awaited investigation into alleged crimes during Sri Lanka’s civil war. The conflict, which began in 1983 and lasted nearly three decades, pitted the Sri Lankan government against various ethnic Tamil rebels, most prominent the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which were fighting for the creation of a separate state in the country’s north and east. The 272-page report makes for grim reading. Focusing on alleged abuses committed by both sides between 2002 and 2011, it…

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By S. V. Kirubaharan – Since the end of the war in Sri Lanka, there have been four resolutions passed in the UN Human Rights Council – UN HRC. The first of these resolutions was initiated soon after the ‘end of the war’ on 26 May 2009, by Sri Lanka itself with the help of India. This resolution was described as ‘Machiavellian’ by diplomats and civil society. Sri Lanka implemented none of its recommendations. At the time when it was passed in the HRC, the US was not a member.…

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Earlier this month, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its long-awaited investigation into alleged crimes during Sri Lanka’s civil war. The conflict, which began in 1983 and lasted nearly three decades, pitted the Sri Lankan government against various ethnic Tamil rebels, most prominent the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which were fighting for the creation of a separate state in the country’s north and east. The 272-page report makes for grim reading. Focusing on alleged abuses committed by both sides between 2002 and 2011, it…

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COLOMBO: Udaya Gammanpilla, a United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MP from Colombo District proposes to move a bill in Parliament in October, to indemnify the Sri Lankan armed forces against prosecution for bona fide official actions taken during military operations. “I will move a Private Member’s bill on this in the next two weeks,”  Gammanpilla told Express on Saturday. “An Act of Indemnity will protect military personnel from being prosecuted for their officially assigned or bona fide actions. But it will not provide protection for non-bona fide actions like mass…

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