TNA urges GoSL not to miss the opportunity to engage in equality process
[TamilNet, Monday, 18 April 2011, 18:38 GMT]
R. Sampanthan, the parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in his response to the leaked recommendations of the UN Panel, on Monday said that the TNA urged the Rajapaksa regime not to miss the opportunity to "constructively engage in a process which would result in all the Peoples of Sri Lanka being the beneficiaries of genuine
democracy, equality and justice."
“The TNA on its part has always been committed and continues to be committed towards achieving a
genuine political solution that recognizes Sri Lanka's ethnic diversity and a full and inclusive citizenship
of all its Peoples, including Tamils as a foundation for permanent peace and stability in the country,” Mr. Sampanthan said in his response.
Full text of the statement by Mr. R. Sampanthan follows:
We have read the disclosure made by the media, said to be the Executive Summary of the Report
submitted by the Advisory Panel to the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG).
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), as the democratically elected representatives of the Tamil People of
the North East, who have been the worst affected victims of the recently concluded war, we consider it
our duty to respond to same, while reserving a fuller response to the full Report after it becomes
available to us.
We recall here with deep anguish, that for over the past half a century, we have consistently urged an
acceptable and reasonable political solution to address the root causes of the ethno-nationalist conflict
in the country and the exclusion of the Tamil People from meaningful powers of governance. It is the
failure on the part of successive governments of the Sri Lankan State to deliver on such a political
solution that has been the primary cause for the exacerbation of the conflict and the consequences
thereof. The Sri Lankan State has over the years, systematically and continuously unleashed violence
against unarmed Tamil civilians in order to suppress and subjugate them and to deny and deprive them
of the realization of any legitimate power-sharing.
We have consistently emphasized that the Sri Lankan government had a duty to ensure that unarmed
Tamil civilians are protected and not harmed in the course of whatever military operations the
Government conducts against armed combatants. However, the Sri Lankan government has persistently
bombed civilian populated areas, used heavy artillery and multi-barrel rocket launchers in such areas,
carried out attacks by deep penetration units resulting in the death of and serious injury to tens of
thousands of unarmed Tamil civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands of such Tamil civilians from their
homes, destroyed their homes and all their occupational equipment and other assets, reducing them to
a state of destitution, deprived such unarmed Tamil civilians of shelter, food, medicines, drinking water
and other essentials, shelled hospitals and relief centers and prosecuted their military operations with
scant regard for the safety, well-being and dignity of the unarmed Tamil civilians in conflict areas. The
extra-judicial execution and enforced disappearance of unarmed Tamil civilians and the scourge of the
white vans has continued unabated. These and other accounts of horrendous incidents were
contemporaneously placed on record in Parliament by the TNA and brought to the notice of all
concerned.
We observe that the Report of the Advisory Panel to the UNSG confirms the truth of what happened to
the unarmed Tamil civilians in the course of the conduct of the recently concluded war and is an
irrefutable confirmation of the accounts of the events as reported by us to Parliament as and when they
occurred. We welcome the finding by the panel that "credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that
a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law
were committed both by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to
war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on
the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during both war and
peace."
Especially the Panel has also found credible allegations associated with the final stages of the
war and that the Sri Lankan Army’s military campaign into the Vanni using large scale and widespread
shelling caused large numbers of civilian deaths. The Panel states that this campaign constituted
persecution of the population of the Vanni, of around 330,000 civilians. The Government’s estimate of
the population in the Vanni at this time was only 70,000. The Panel also asserts that these credibly
alleged violations demand a serious investigation and the prosecution of those responsible. The Panel
also notes that "the Government’s notion of accountability is not in accordance with international
standards." The Panel also requires that the Government genuinely addresses the allegations of
violations committed by both sides and to place the rights and dignity of the victims of the conflict at the
centre of its approach to accountability, if its measures are not to fall dramatically short of international
expectations. In this context, the Panel has recommended certain measures, which as a whole, it hopes
will serve as a framework for an ongoing and constructive engagement between the Secretary-General
and the Government of Sri Lanka on accountability. We welcome the recommendations made by the
Panel and trust that they will be honestly implemented.
Most importantly, the Panel has observed that an environment conducive to accountability which would
permit a candid appraisal of the broad patterns of the past, including the root causes of the long-running
ethno-nationalist conflict, does not exist at present. It would require concrete steps towards building an
open society in which human rights are respected, as well as a fundamental shift away from
triumphalism and denial towards a genuine commitment to a political solution that recognizes Sri
Lanka's ethnic diversity and a full and inclusive citizenship of all its people, including Tamils as a
foundation for the country's future.
The TNA on its part has always been committed and continues to be committed towards achieving a
genuine political solution that recognizes Sri Lanka's ethnic diversity and a full and inclusive citizenship
of all its Peoples, including Tamils as a foundation for permanent peace and stability in the country.
We therefore urge the Government of Sri Lanka not to miss this opportunity and to constructively
engage in a process which would result in all the Peoples of Sri Lanka being the beneficiaries of genuine
democracy, equality and justice.
R Sampanthan
Parliamentary Group Leader
Tamil National Alliance
Chronology: