| by S. V. Kirubaharan
( September 14, 2012, Geneva, Sri Lanka Guardian) This report shows how Sri Lanka is systematically violating UN Human Rights covenants and conventions to which it is signatory.
Due to international pressure, Sri Lanka is trying to amalgamate its response to the allegations of (1) war crimes, (2) violations of human rights and (3) its failure to come up with a political solution despite presidential executive powers and over two thirds majority in parliament – with its responsibility (4) to report through the UPR system. These are four different affairs.
Since the UNHRC Resolution of the 19th session, Sri Lanka has been trying to deceive the International Community into believing that no violations are taking place and that local remedies for accountability are working. BUT the reality is, local remedies are not implemented and there is no local remedy for allegations of war crimes. Even while we write this appeal; disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rape, violence against women, torture, arbitrary detentions, violence against media personnel, trade unionists, academics and others are taking place.
Now three years have passed since the war ended. The President, who told the International community that the Tamil political problem would be settled as soon as terrorism was wiped out, took no initiative, not a single positive step, to settle the long bloody conflict. On the contrary, today the government is busy colonising, militarising, buddhistising the Tamil hereditary land, the North and East.
The international community is finding it difficult to understand that no Sri Lankan government will find a viable political solution to the Tamil question in the Island. A thousand years after Lord Buddha lived, the religious text “Mahavamsa”, written in Pali language by a Buddhist monk conveyed the political message that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhala Buddhists only. As it is in Pali language, Sri Lankan Buddhists who do not know nor understand Pali, accept everything that Buddhist monks preach.
They are taught to believe that Sri Lanka belongs to only Singhalese and non-Sinhala Buddhists – Tamils - are invaders of the Island. Therefore the Buddhists who are strong believers in this interpretation of the “Mahavamsa” will never give equal rights to the Tamils in this island. Ancient Sinhala King Dutugemunu and some present politicians have said openly that Tamils should be sent back to South India. Because of these reasons, presently Christians and Moors are becoming victims of this theory. “The Sinhalese majority often use Mahavamsa as a proof of their claim that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist nation from historical time”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavamsa
Of course, the Mahavamsa has been discredited and is considered as fiction by various scholars.
At the same time the Sri Lankan government is encouraging the Tamils to escape from Sri Lanka. Last June, the Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son Namal Rajapaksa, was accused of being behind human trafficking rings which operate from the North in Mullaiththevu. It was said that he arranged ships for Tamils to escape from Sri Lanka to seek asylum in Australia. It was alleged that those shippings were supported by the Sri Lanka military governor of the North, several Ministers of the cabinet and the Sri Lanka Navy. (LankaNewsWeb, 23 June 2012 - “Rajapaksa's son starts human trafficking from Vanni to Australia”.) Is this an indirect evacuation of Tamils from Sri Lanka?
On the other hand the Indian fishermen are harassed, arrested, detained, tortured and killed in the sea by the Sri Lanka Navy.
It is imperative that the International Community continue its scrutiny of Sri Lanka’s human rights records and indeed intensify and sharpen its commitments. Time is running out.
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