By Thambu Kanagasabai –
Thambu Kanagasabai
The opening statements of Human Rights Commissioner and Core Members (UK, Canada, Germany, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Malawi) sum up Sri Lanka’s hollow and dismal performance and the disappointing compliance of Human Right Council’s Resolutions and Recommendations issued against Sri Lanka since October 2015.
The Commissioner of Human Rights “called on Sri Lanka to focus on deeper institutional reforms to ensure greater transparency and accountability in governance, reduce inequalities and advance reconciliation and justice for all communities”.
Her statement has confirmed and buttressed the failings of Sri Lanka to ensure discernible accountability, justice and reconciliation due to bad governance affecting all communities.
These frank and forthright allegations expose Sri Lankas’ total contemptuous disregard and cavalier attitude and humiliating respect to the noble UN Human Rights Council and its reputed High Commissioner.
This article analyzes the performances of Sri Lanka briefly since the Human Rights Resolution 30/2015 and its Recommendations along with others.
The statement of Core Group members also “Expresses concerns about Government Politicians and their supporters launching attacks on protesters at Galle Face on May 9th 2022 when they were exercising their right of freedom of expression and the perpetrators must be brought and held responsible.
“Democratic human rights, rule of law, independence to protest, impunity and corruption must be ended and solved including continuing humiliation and harassment of civil activists, groups and institutions including necessity to allow proper environment for civil societies and organizations.”
This forthright and frank statement of Core Group has without any reservations exposed Sri Lanka’ s abject failure of commitments to comply with and implement the Recommendations of UNHRC. Instead, Sri Lanka has been launching flagrant acts of human rights violations and exhibiting its obduracy and defiance of UNHRC and its Recommendations. The truth and reality is that Sri Lankas’ compliances of the UNHRC’S Resolutions and Recommendations are executed with defiant beaches of same nullifying the purposes and objectives of the Recommendations including their values.
Only two Recommendations out of more than twenty five have been carried out by Sri Lanka, one being the establishment of the Office of the Missing Persons [OMP] and the other being the passing of the Enforced Disappearances Act in 2016. However, Sri Lanka’s compliance of these recommendations as usual has ended in a fiasco as these two offices have failed miserably to serve the victims of the disappeared as one victim recently remarked that not even the whereabouts of one person has been discovered and identified so far. It appears that currently these two offices are in a state of coma without any revival.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s entrenched culture of impunity is also still in full swing. Instead of prosecuting and punishing the alleged war criminals, most of them being security personnel, promotions and decorations are being showered on them as punishments for the alleged commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity etc.. The recent promotions of Savendra de Silva as Chief of Staff, an accused war criminal as General and Lieutenant General Chandra Wickremasinghe as Major General and Vikum Liyanage being promoted as the new Army Commander who is also alleged to have committed war crimes when commanding the 14th and 8th Divisions of Army as Major General show the low depths of criminal and judicial system in Sri Lanka.
As stated earlier on many occasions by human rights activist and human rights Commissioners accountability and justice is simply an anathema in Sri Lankas’ political system and history which is only aiming to make Sri Lanka as a country belonging to Sinhalese and Buddhists as claimed by many south politicians including some Buddhist Priests.
To state briefly, Sri Lanka has failed to implement the majority of the Recommendations including the Core ones. For example;
* No independent, internal mechanism has been set up so far as this is a dead promise from the very beginning.
* The Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1978 will not be repealed as promised and it continues to be vigorously applied mostly targeting the Tamils, Muslims, Political and Human Rights Activists and those who raise their voices against the present government.
In this respect, foreign minister G. L. Peiris as usual and habitual unfolded a tissue of lies at Geneva on June 13, 2022. The most diabolical lies are when he said:
“We have made significant progress in some key areas like the releasing of 92% of civilian lands seized and occupied by the military”.
The truth is that the military is still occupying about 28,990 Acres of forcibly seized private lands. Adding insult to injury, Buddhist Maha Sangha has requested the Army to start cultivating those seized lands, dealing a body blow to the livelihood of the owners of those private lands.
The Minister also said that the “Office of Missing Persons has met 83% of persons invited by them”. Assuming this is true, the hidden truths are that so far not a single person captured and or surrenderd to the security forces has been identified and produced alive as the mother of a disappeared victim recently lamented her grief regarding her son who surrendered to the security forces. The other truth is that not one single case has been resolved so far.
The recent statement of US Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirms the sorry state of Human Rights in Sri Lanka when it “When it called on Quad countries(Australia, India, Japan and USA) to stand together this year at the Human Rights Council when the Body receives “HR Commissioner’s report on war crimes committed during “Sri Lanka’s civil war”. Diplomatic unity would help demonstrate the Quad’s commitment to Accountability and respect for International Humanitarian Laws.” (Tamil Guardian of June 16, 2022).
There is no doubt that the UN Human Rights Commissioner is fully cognizant of the persistent and continuous failings and breaches of Sri Lanka of its commitments to comply with the HRC recommendations and the blatant lies poured out by the Foreign Minister will neither hold water nor be bought by any country which upholds Accountability, Justice, Human Rights and Rule of Law.
It is hoped that the Human Rights Council while living up to its standing, status and reputation will unreservedly and unhesitatingly initiate whatever steps available and necessary to mete out justice to the war victims and rein in Sri Lanka to ensure the respect and the application of Human Rights to every citizen in Sri Lanka by defeating the dilly-dallying, procrastinating and dismissive deceptive tactics of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s much touted Reconciliation among all sections of communities was once again breached with impunity when on June 16, 2022, despite Court’s ban on erection of any statues, several Buddist Monks accompanied by the Army with the participation of Archeological Commissioner attempted to consecrate a Buddha’s Statue at an ancient Hindu Temple site at Mullaitivu Kurunthur Malai area on June 11, 2022 which is an act of cultural genocide. However, this attempt to kill the reconciliation was thwarted by the public and Tamil politicians and some Tamil members of parliament.
In this respect, the letter of the Head of US Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Quad countries rightly and correctly highlights the important roles of these countries when the Committee requested them to “Take a more proactive role in addressing Sri Lanka’s political and economic crisis”.(Tamil Guardian June 16, 2022).
*Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka & President, Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization.
Siva Sankaran Sharma / June 24, 2022
Well said thank you.
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Captain Morgan / June 24, 2022
While I fully agree with everything the author says, this is like blowing a trumpet into the ears of a deaf man. Nothing less than concerted international arm twisting will have any effect on this government of buffalos.
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Eagle Eye / June 24, 2022
“…which is an act of cultural genocide.”
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‘CULTURAL GENOCIDE’!
First, Tamils came out with genocide of Tamils but they failed to provide evidences for that. Now they are coming up with ‘CULTURAL GENOCIDE’ by just picking one incident.
Actually, genocide of Sinhala Buddhist heritage in North East where indigenous Sinhalayo had their first Kingdoms Anuradhapura (377 BC to 1017 AD) and Polonnaruwa (1056 AD–1232 AD) and Sinhala settlements was done by Dravidians who invaded Sinhale and Dravidians brought to Yapanaya by Portuguese and Dutch.
Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thera who did extensive research on Sinhala Buddhist Heritage in the North and the East of Sri Lanka has confirmed that almost all archeological sites in NE are Sinhala Buddhist heritage sites (Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thera ‘Sinhala Buddhist Heritage in the North and the East of Sri Lanka (Colombo; Mount Laurel, N.J. : Dayawansa Jayakody & Co., 2005)’. He has put on record places where Tamils and Muslims have built Kovils and Mosques on top of Buddhist heritage sites.
A report submitted by Mr. Cyril Mathew to UNESCO entitled “An Appeal to UNESCO to Safeguard and Preserve the Cultural Property in Sri Lanka Endangered by Racial Prejudice, Unlawful Occupation or Willful Destruction” in 1983 gives solid examples of 24 archaeological sites linked to Sinhala Buddhists in the North Central part of Sri Lanka which are been vandalized or destroyed by Tamils.
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Eagle Eye / June 24, 2022
“Sri Lanka’s hollow and dismal performance and the disappointing compliance of Human Right Council’s Resolutions and Recommendations issued against Sri Lanka since October 2015.”
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Why should Sri Lanka take UNHRC Resolutions based on inaccurate information submitted by Tamils who declared war against Sinhala Buddhists and massacred them for three decades seriously?
The UNHRC is acting as if the Government of Sri Lanka and Sinhalayo started war against Tamil minority. Unfortunately, Ministry of Foreign Affairs failed to tell the truth to UNHRC on who are Tamils, how they happened to live in Sinhale, separatist agenda Tamil politicians had from 1930s, passing Vaddukkodai Resolution with a fabricated history of Sinhale to justify their demand for a separate State, declaring war against the Government of Sri Lanka and Sinhala Nation, asking Tamils to take up arms and fight until they achieve their objective of creating Tamil Eelam and massacring Sinhala Buddhists for three decades committing war crimes and crimes against humanity to grab Sinhala land in NE to create Eelam.
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Thanga / June 27, 2022
In the first place, there were no Sinhalese before the 8th century AD. Today’s Sinhalese are the descendants of Nagas, the dominant tribe inhabiting Certain places such as Nagadeepa in Jaffna and Kalyani in Gampaha. The names of some Naga kings in Sri Lankan legends such as Mani Akkhitha (Mani Naga) and Mahodara are also found in Sanskrit literature among superhuman Nagas and the cult of Mani Naga prevailed in India up to medieval times.
The Jaffna Peninsula was mentioned in Tamil literature as Naka Nadu, in Pali literature as Nagadeepa and in Greek gazetteers as Nagadiba. The Nagas like the Tamils were Hindus till the conversion of Devanampiya Tissa by Mahinda Thera. Buddhism was also the dominant religion in Tamil Nadu from the 2nd century AD to the 9th century AD.
It came to an end after the Bhakti movement, a major Saivaite (Hindu) religious revival movement during medieval India, that sought to bring reforms to all strata of society by preaching the practice of devotion to achieve salvation. During this time many Tamil Buddhists fled to North Ceylon to escape persecution. Nagas and Tamils coexisted amicably since the majority of them were Buddhists by faith.
The few Buddhist heritage sites you find in the North belong to Nagas/Tamils, not to Sinhalese!
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Lester / June 27, 2022
Hela civilization was created by Sinhalese. Tamil was never actually an ethnicity to begin with until the British Raj period. The ethnically Tamil one identifies today were never a monolithic group in the past. Chettiars, Karaiyar, Iyer were all individual communities by themselves whereas Tamil was mainly a lingua Franca. Notably, these communities have their own distinct origins.Modern Tamils living in the north and east today had ancestors who came there in much more recent ages times. Many observations regarding Tamil history and settlements can be correctly interpreted by analysing the caste history, origin is no different. All caste communities found in the north today arrived here post the 10th century AD. The people of the north today are not the continuous descendants of the people who lived in the prehistoric age.
It was the Aryans who established the first structured civilization on this island as per all historic and archaeological evidence we have. Thus the Raja rata civilization was the earliest civilization in this land nothing predated it and whatever descends from that point is what is truly and rightfully indigenous. The culture and language of the Tamilakam belongs in the Tamilakam it does not belong to the Hela.
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