ஒவ்வொரு வருடமும் மனு அனுப்புவது எனது வாடிக்கை. தற்போது நடக்கும் கூட்டத்தொடருக்கு நான் அனுப்பிய மனு கீழ் வருமாறு:
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From
K.S.RadhaKrishnan,
4/359, Sri Chaitanya Avenue,
Annasalai, Palavakkam,
Chennai – 600041
India.
To
United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR),
Palais des Nations,
CH-1211 Geneva 10,
Switzerland.
Sir,
Sub: SriLankan Tamils Qusetion – Reg
____
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) session, which is under way in Geneva now, has brought the spotlight firmly again on a long-standing demand for setting up an international court to try Sri Lanka for its war crimes in May 2009, in which the island’s Army killed about 1 Lakhs ethnic Tamils. For the past 11 years, the Sri Lankan Government has warded off an international commission of inquiry or face an international court for its war crimes against its innocent Tamil civilians and it is time Colombo is brought to book. Justice demands that it will be most appropriate to do so now because Gotabaya Rajapakse, who is Sri Lanka’s President now, was the Defence Minister when the island’s Army massacred 70,000 Tamil civilians in May 2009, summarily executed the top leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who surrendered to them, and its Air Force bombed hospitals, residential areas and places of refuge. Besides, it was in May 2009 that the Sri Lankan Army froze children with bullets and raped a number of Tamil women. It was also then when Gotabaya’s elder brother, Mahinda Rajapakse, was the island’s President.
The brothers are back in power now with Gotabaya Rajapakse as President and Mahinda Rajapakse as the Prime Minister. So it is time now for the UN HRC to act and compel these two brothers to stand trial for their crimes against humanity.
There is gathering support for the demand that the HRC should pass a resolution that Colombo should be made to pay for its war crimes. Ms. Navi Pillai, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has emphasised that successive UN reports have outlined what she has described as “credible evidence that the Sri Lankan State itself committed international crimes.” In an interview to Laurel E. Fletcher, published in “Just Security” on February 15, 2011, she said, “It is time for the HRC to make a drastic departure from its customary complacency over the failures of the Sri Lankan Government and hold it to account.”
Michelle Bachelet, who is now UN High Commissioner for High Rights, was equally blunt in her observation that Sri Lanka was traversing an “alarming path towards recurrence of grave human rights violations” now.
It is worth quoting at length from the interview that Pillai gave to Fletcher. This is what the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees said: “The last six months of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009 were played out live on world television screens. We watched the Sri Lankan army shoot to death the alleged leaders of the terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), even as they raised white flags in surrender. We watched extensive aerial bombing of Tamil civilians and destruction of their homes, hospitals and places of refuge. The onslaught continued well after the capture and killing of the alleged terrorists. We heard the last cry for help from doctors who were treating the injured in hospitals that were being shelled…
“Sri Lanka informed the international community that it was exercising its sovereign right to contain terrorism inside its territory; and so no international forum - not the U.N. Security Council, not the U.N. General Assembly, nor the Human Rights Council – addressed the situation until June 2, 2009 when in my capacity as High Commissioner for Human Rights, I placed the matter on the agenda of the Human Rights Council. I reported serious human rights violations to the HRC, including loss of thousands of civilian lives, rape and sexual violence against women and girls, and forced dislocation of Tamils. The HRC and U.N. bodies have a role in the protection of human rights in crisis situations. I recommended that the council establish an independent international inquiry into grave violations of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL).”
This is yet to happen although 12 years have passed since Pillai made this recommendation.
In an informed article titled, “A growing rights crisis in Sri Lanka”, Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director at Human rights Watch, said, “The human rights situation in Sri Lanka has worsened since Gotabaya Rajapakse became President in 2019.” The article, with the sub-title, “The UNHRC must take strict action against the gross abuse of human rights by Sri Lanka”, was published in The Hindu newspaper on February 18, 2021. The author noted, “ At its next session starting February 22, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will face a crucial test in taking action for protecting vulnerable Sri Lankans and upholding international law. India, as a council member, will have a key role.”
In a blistering attack on the Gotabaya brothers, Meenakshi Ganguly said, “[Gotabaya] Rajapaksa was the defence secretary in the Government led by his brother Mahinda from 2005 to 2015, a period marked by particularly egregious human rights abuses. Critics of the Government were murdered, tortured, and forcibly made to disappear. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the civil war which ended in 2009 between the government forces and the separatist Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with both the sides responsible for numerous war crimes. In the final months of the war, the armed forces indiscriminately shelled civilians and summarily executed suspected LTTE fighters.”
What is terrible is that with the Gotabaya brothers capturing power again in 2019, “the fear has returned”, as the South Asia Director of Human Rights Watch says. She adds: “Tamil communities in the north and east fear increasing abuses. Since last year, singing the national anthem in Tamil has been dropped from Independence Day celebrations. The religious rights of minorities are under attack, including interference with Hindu temples.”
Officials demolished in January 2021 a memorial built on the campus of Jaffna University to mourn the massacre of many thousands of Tamil civilians in the civil war.
The UNHRC comprised Canada, Germany, India, Macedonia, the UAE and other countries. India, which is a member of the HRC, had “a moral responsibility and duty” in taking the lead to bring an amendment to the proposed resolution, which would force Colombo to stand trial in an international court, There should be a referendum in the Tamil areas of the island whether the Tamils wanted a separate Tamil Eeelam or not. “It should be a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote”, he said.
To go back to Meenakshi Ganguly, It is worth quoting extensively from her article in The Hindu newspaper on how the Rajapaksa brothers’ government has total disdain for human rights.
She said, “The Rajapaksa Government in 2020, renounced its commitments under the 2015 Human Rights Council resolution and is threatening the victims’ families and activists who supported it. A Presidential commission, set up to investigate supposed “political victimisation” of officials by the previous government has recommended the exoneration of those implicated in cases of abuse. Numerous people, who were involved in war crimes, have been appointed to senior roles.
“The Rajapaksa government has shown outright disdain for accountability. In September last year, Sri Lankan told the Human Rights Council that allegations against senior military officers are “unacceptable” and without “substantive evidence.”
“Last March, Rajapaksa pardoned former army sergeant Sunil Ratnayake, who killed eight Tamil civilians including children. In October, the government amended the constitution to remove constraints on political interference in Sri Lanka’s courts.
“Since 2012, the Human Rights Council has sought to work with Sri Lanka to promote reconciliation and accountability, efforts that India has backed. Sri Lanka is now rejecting that endeavour, instead proposing a new domestic commission that UN experts have dismissed as lacking credibility or independence.
“The UNHRC should recognise the government’s actions for what they are – an effort to impede justice. “
Meenakshi Ganguly, therefore, has demanded that “a new resolution is urgently needed to protect vulnerable minority communities in Sr Lanka, by upholding the principles of accountability for the worst crimes.” She urged that “India should join other member States in supporting a resolution to reduce the growing risk of future atrocities.”
Navi Pillai too has demanded that the US Congress “should act decisively and accept the recommendations” made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for justice and accountability in Sri Lanka, and “unequivocally hold the perpetrators of grave human rights violations against the Tamils accountable.” She emphasised that ““Gota’s war” against terrorism must not be allowed to become a war against the rule of law and international standards of conduct towards defeated peoples.” Pillai demanded that “The Biden-Harris administration should seize the opportunity to reinforce its support for justice and accountability and make known to the world its return to values-based leadership.”
It is time that the UNHRC passed a resolution that Culprits should face an international independent inquiry under due process of law for their war crimes against innocent Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka and this render justice.
Dated at Chennai on 3rd March 2021.
K.S.RadhaKrishnan
Advocate, High Court of Judicature at Madras,
Spokes Person, DMK.
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