Dominic Premananth, a Tamil lawyer and human rights activist, has called on the UN High Commissioner Volker Türk to “speak to the affected Tamil people and see the truth” during his visit to the island this week.
Premananth is amongst many Tamil activists and civil society groups calling on the UN High Commissioner to visit the North-East to hear from “people at the grassroots” during his four day visit to the island instead of blindly following “what the government says and what the government shows.”
“The current government is engaged in activities to protect the actions of previous governments and their human rights violations.
Namely, the human skeletons at the Chemmani mass graves relate to the time of Chandrika [Kumaratunga] and later Mahinda [Rajapaksa], specifically 1995, 1996 and 1997, during military occupation. At that time there were many disappearances. Many people were arrested during events like military roundups and went missing in military camps," Premananth told Tamil Guardian.
Premananth went on to state that the UN High Commissioner should spend his time going to the military camps stationed across the North-East and the courts where investigations into the mass graves are pending to witness the reality of the Tamil homeland.
Türk arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday and is expected to visit Colombo, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Kandy. During his visit to Jaffna, he is expected to visit the Chemmani mass gravesite, where 19 skeletons were recently discovered during construction work near a Hindu cemetery.
Tamil activists and families of the disappeared are holding a three day vigil titled the 'Unextinguished Flame' in Chemmani to demand justice for the victims buried in the mass grave.
Full transcript below:
We welcome the upcoming visit of the UN High Commissioner because the current government did not happily accept the visit. At the same time, it does not look like they [the Sri Lankan government] will accept a new UN resolution because there are still land grabs, militarisation, and the recent discovery of mass graves in the North-East. Due of this, the [Sri Lankan] military is not releasing land in many areas. As they fear that when such land releases take place, more mass graves could be found in certain military camps. Also the current government is engaged in activities to protect the actions of previous governments and their human rights violations. Namely, the human skeletons at the Chemmani mass graves relate to the time of Chandrika [Kumaratunga] and later Mahinda [Rajapaksa] , specifically 1995, 1996 and 1997, during military occupation. At that time, there were many disappearances. Many people were arrested during events like military roundups and went missing in military camps. This includes many young people. Based on this evidence, the UN High Commissioner should freely see these places in the North-East. He should hear the stories of people, people at the grassroots. He should not follow what the government says and what the government shows. He should speak to the affected Tamil people and see the truth. This should be pursued. After they see the truth, they should see the resistance the government gives to the resolutions they pass. Because in the North-East, the same old ways of governance are still followed without fault. Thus the Human Rights Commissioner should go see military camps in the North-East and the courts where investigations relating to mass graves are pending. He should investigate such places. He should see such places for himself. If the international investigations the people are calling for, before international observers, [goes ahead], the truth of such places will come to light. Many of the relatives of those who were forcibly disappeared in 1995/1996 are not here today. In this situation as we do DNA tests on their skeletons and do DNA tests on those here today, time will continue to pass by. This needs to be done quickly. These DNA tests should be done quickly and a solution should be found quickly. The UN Commissioner for human rights should, with correct understanding of this, talk directly to Tamil people and the affected parties and deliver justice for us. It is our request that you should not advance the government’s narrative and fulfil the main goals of the affected people.
