"In light of the Sri Lankan Government's failure to act, the United States'
apparent decision to call again, for the third year in a row, another
domestic investigation by the Sri Lankan government, while not seeking
to formalize an OHCHR investigation into a Commission of Inquiry is a
profound disappointment to the victimized Tamil community," said Dr.
Karunyan Arulanantham, President of USTPAC.
UN
bodies and human rights organizations have estimated that over 40,000
ethnic Tamil civilians were killed during the final months of the war in
2009. These killings occurred as part of a systematic program in which
the Sri Lankan government designated areas, including hospitals, as
"No-Fire" zones, and then extensively bombed and shelled those same
areas.
The United States Department of State's own 2013 report on Sri Lanka recorded deteriorating human rights climate in Sri Lanka
ripe with torture, extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrest and
detention, attacks on journalists, and "widespread impunity for a broad
range of human rights violations." Despite overwhelming evidence of
these horrific crimes, the Government of Sri Lanka has failed to take even modest steps to ensure accountability for the war crimes for the last five years.
USTPAC calls on the United States' government to heed the growing consensus in the international community, as expressed by the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights, by amending its resolution to call for an independent international investigation in the form of a Commission of Inquiry
to investigate the atrocities committed by both sides during the final
stages of the ethnic conflagration in 2009. "Permitting the Sri Lankan
government to thumb its nose at the international human rights community
only encourages impunity and further mass atrocities in Sri Lanka and elsewhere," observed Dr. Arulanantham.
Read more news from USTPAC.
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