The UNHRC Resolution: A Critical Interrogation

By Krisna Saravanamuttu -April 6, 2014

Krisna Saravanamuttu

“The struggle for liberation sharpened only because the people realized that they were being taken for a ride. Those same realizations helped keep our struggle on track. If these are to be blunted we will become a race prepared to give up its ideals in return for concessions.” – Taraki Sivaram, former senior editor of TamilNet

Five years after the international community, the co-chairs to the peace process, and the United Nations failed to stop Sri Lanka’s 2009 genocide, Tamils appear to finally be upon a new beginning in the decades long struggle for justice. The US sponsored resolution passed an intense session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last week. The motion carried and supposedly sets up an international investigation into wartime abuses.  The fact that some Tamil activists lobbied for this resolution at the Human Rights Council does not preclude a closer, critical, and more constructive interrogation. The question remains, how exactly will the resolution advance Tamil freedom in the international arena?

A political solution to end Tamil genocide

A cursory glance at the text of the resolution tabled by the United States leaves something conspicuously absent. Besides a vague insinuation to the Sri Lankan campaign to “combat terrorism,” there is not a single mention of the word ‘Tamil’ (not even once). Instead, the resolution declared “its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.” Upon closer scrutiny, minorities and religious groups are mentioned, but still no mention of the unique oppression Tamils suffer.

Tamils qualify as a Nation of people, not a minority group, with their own identity, language, culture, history and an identifiable territorial homeland. So any reference to minorities in the UNHRC resolution is irrelevant to the Tamil Question. Indeed, the Tamil People today resist Sri Lanka’s attempts to make them into a scattered minority across their homeland, for the struggle has always been about the survival of the Tamils as a Nation. There are minorities in the island like the Berghers, the mixed descendants of Europeans. What makes us, the Tamils, the target of genocide is that we are a nation with a specific claim to a homeland in the NorthEast. Of course, such arguments are nothing new to the policy makers behind the resolution. Although political will to recognize Tamil Nationhood leaves much to be desired, it is a prerequisite to resolving the island’s conflict.Read More