This week the text of the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka will be finalised and voted on by member states. Amid the intense deliberations of the past weeks in Geneva, the crux of the problem in the island has been laid bare. Even as diplomatic missions, international NGOs, numerous Tamil actors and some Sinhala ones have campaigned for mandating an international independent investigation into Sri Lanka’s wartime atrocities and ongoing abuses, the arguments of those calling for a more tolerant and accommodative approach have been thoroughly discredited by Colombo’s own conduct: not only has the government rejected out of hand calls for accountability for some of the worst atrocities of the century, it has, in a direct snub to the UNHRC, intensified its repression and terrorising of the Tamil people.

The opposition spokeswoman for Australian foreign affairs, Tanya Pulbersek, today, reiterating that domestic investigation mechanisms in Sri Lanka had failed, called for Australia to support their ‘usual allies’ and back calls for an international investigation.

Urging the Australian government to support the UNHRC resolution, she said,

“Our call for the Australian government is to support the draft resolution before the Human Rights Council is to reduce violations and abuses and put us in company with all of our usual allies when it comes to foreign affairs decision making.”

The below is compiled from comments by Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam to the Geneva Press Club on March 21, 2014 during a panel discussion, ‘Is the Sri Lanka resolution at the UNHRC part of the problem?’ Mr. Ponnambalam is President of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF).

The purpose of my intervention is to outline the Tamil people’s expectations of international processes and institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Council, given the prevailing situation in the Tamil areas of the North-East. Fundamentally, any international action with regards to Sri Lanka needs to effect distinctive change on the ground. As far as the Tamil people are concerned, this is the only criteria by which one should judge whether any act on our behalf is a positive step, a negative step or, quite simply, irrelevant to us.

 

Today we hear a lot about the process of violence that continues five years after the war. We hear about military occupation, rape, the appropriation of land, the imprisonment of political prisoners, the denial of civil liberties under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the deterioration of health, food and social security.

The leader of the house and cabinet minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told reporters today that the government was against this resolution and that there was a hidden agenda behind it.

“We are totally against this resolution. If there is a human right issue in the country, it should be addressed through a domestic process. This resolution has a hidden agenda. This is totally a political process. It is not an independent panel which is taking decisions at the UNHRC,

Pictures: @tamilguardian

Around 2,000 Sri Lankans gathered today outside the UN Human Rights Council headquarters in Geneva, in protest at the resolution on Sri Lanka, to be tabled later this week.

One student was admitted to hospital suffering severe injuries from the attack.