Little over a week ahead of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions in Geneva, a group of Tamil parliamentarians and civil society representatives have written to Foreign Ministers of the UN Core Group on Sri Lanka urging them to present a fresh UN Resolution on Sri Lanka, the Sunday Times reported,
This they say is to achieve accountability for alleged crimes committed by referring Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as recommended by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in her last report submitted to the Council in March last year.
The collective letter signed by eight MPs from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Thamil Makkal Koottani led by C. V. Wigneswaran requested the Core Group to ensure that the fresh UN Resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC 51st session clearly urged the UN Security Council to refer Sri Lanka to the ICC since it failed to implement previous UN Resolutions thoroughly.
“We as representatives of the Tamil people strongly believe that anything short of calling for the referral to ICC will permanently eliminate any chance of getting justice for the mass atrocities we faced,” the letter stressed.
Pointing out that both North Korea and Sudan were referred to the ICC despite their close ties to China and it did not exercise its veto power at that time, the letter noted that none of the UN Security Council Permanent members has indicated that they will veto any referral of Sri Lanka to ICC as well.
“Then the question arises why this excuse is being advanced against Sri Lanka being referred to the ICC by the UNHRC. The only logical conclusion for this argument is that is to protect Sri Lankan political leaders and military officers from facing justice for the mass atrocities committed against Tamil people,” the letter noted.
