Government -TNA Multi -Track Engagement Essential

By Jehan Perera -

Jehan Perera

When assessing the government’s post-war performance it is the issues of accountability on human rights issues and a political solution to the ethnic conflict that take the international centre stage.  On both of these counts the Government of Sri Lanka would fare poorly in international estimation.  The governmental decision to reject a request by the UN Human Rights Council to send a team to provide technical assistance on human rights issues would be the latest international black mark against the government.

Despite international interest in the issue of war crimes and human rights violations  allegedly committed in the last phase of the war the government’s position has been consistently to reject this interest as unwarranted and hypocritical international intervention.   The government’s defense has been essentially two-fold.  One is to deny that any such violations ever took place as a result of government policy.  The second defense is more an implied one rather than explicitly stated.  It is to take the position that what happened was necessary to end the curse of the war once and for all.

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