TNA hails report; calls for introspection within Tamil community

The Tamil National Alliance strongly welcomed the OISL report released yesterday, particularly the report’s recommendation for the establishment of a hybrid court and the incorporation of international crimes into Sri Lanka’s laws so that prosecutions could take place.

TNA Lawmaker and Spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran told Daily FT at the Palais des Nations in Geneva that the party hoped the Government would accept the UN report.

Sumanthiran said the Foreign Minister in his address to the Human Rights Council this week had noted that that there was a new Sri Lanka in which things would be different.

“Sri Lanka must now stand up and accept this report and work with the world community. To that extent, we ask the 47 Member States in the Human Rights Council to adopt all the recommendations in the OISL report as a resolution. We ask the Government of Sri Lanka to agree to that so that we can go forward with one aim. To deal with the past properly, in a manner that will assuage the feelings of the victims and having dealt with the past in a meaningful way to move forward into a bright future for all of Sri Lanka’s people,” the TNA Parliamentarian urged.

He also urged soul-searching within the Tamil community, about the community’s own failures. “We ask the Tamil people of Sri Lanka also to use this moment as a moment of introspection into our own community’s failures and create the right culture and atmosphere in which we can live with dignity and self-respect, as equal citizens of Sri Lanka,” Sumanthiran said. (DB)