NPC Passes Resolution to Probe War Crimes Committed in Sri Lanka

A motion submitted by NPC member Ananthi Sasitharan on people reported missing in the North was also adopted on the same day.

Northern Provincial Council

(MELBOURNE) - On the 27^th January 2014, the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) passed a resolution seeking an international war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka. Submitted before the NPC, the resolution also approved a proposal that an NPC member attend the March session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Accordingly, NPC member Ananthi Sasitharan was appointed to attend the Geneva UN Human Rights Council sessions in March. Obviously, she is the right person for the job.

The resolution seeking an international war crimes investigation, which was amended from the original document before being adopted, rejected domestic investigations into alleged crimes committed against Tamils during the war. A motion submitted by NPC member Ananthi Sasitharan on people reported missing in the North was also adopted on the same day.

In spite of the determination of most of the members of the council, there appeared to be a difference between the Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, who met some of the NPC members the previous day and urged them not to create a rift in the working relationship between the Government and the NPC, as if there was no disagreement between the Sinhalese and Tamils leaders before. The Sinhalese leaders at no time in the past 64 years wanted to give the Tamils any right to live with dignity and self respect. If they had gone that all these death and destruction would have been unnecessary.

R. Sampanthan of the Tamil National Alliance

He had noted earlier that the resolution calling for an international probe in Sri Lanka was strongly worded and needed to be diluted. The Hon Wigneswaran will have to realise that that he is no longer a judge, where everything can be done according to rules and regulations. Sri Lankan politics is such that it follows no rule or regulation; it is dominated by a chauvinistic instinct on the part of the Sinhalese to create a wholly Sinhala-Buddhist state. In Sri Lanka there is no substitute for a international independent investigation into the Mullivaaikkal genocide.

Meanwhile, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) says it will gather support for the resolution on Sri Lanka to be submitted at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March 2014.

TNA leader R. Sampanthan said that the resolution sponsored by the United States is expected to be very critical. He said that the TNA has urged the United States to ensure the resolution brings a solution to the Tamil issue. Sampanthan said this after the TNA central committee met in Trincomalee.

He said that the TNA will have meetings with UNHRC member countries and seek their support for the resolution. He said that the Government is having talks with some countries, particularly Muslim countries, in order to seek support against the resolution. However, he expressed confidence in the resolution being passed by a majority when it is taken up for a vote in Geneva.