US resolution to build on previous resolution

Sunday, 03 March 2013

The new resolution to be submitted by the United States at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva will build on the 2012 resolution, the US State Department has said.

Asked on Sri Lanka for a second day in succession at the US State Department press briefing, Patrick Ventrell, Acting Deputy Spokesperson of the US State Department said that the resolution will ask the Government of Sri Lanka to follow through on its own commitments to its people.

“Well, we do intend to, as I mentioned yesterday, sponsor resolution at the UN Human Rights Council current session. It will build on the 2012 resolution, which called on Sri Lanka to do more to promote reconciliation and accountability. The resolution will ask the Government of Sri Lanka to follow through on its own commitments to its people, including implementing the constructive recommendations from the report by Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. So that’s really the content of the resolution and we’re cosponsoring – we’re sponsoring it and support it,” he said.

On Thursday Ventrell was asked to comment on the new report by Human Rights Watch which alleges human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

He said the Government of Sri Lanka had not initiated a full, credible, or independent investigation into longstanding allegations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, including sexual assault.

India should vote against Sri Lanka at UN, Karunanidhi reiterates

Reported by J Sam Daniel Stalin, Edited by Abhinav Bhatt (with inputs from agencies) | Updated: March 03, 2013 15:03 IST

File picture of M Karunanidhi

Chennai: The DMK in Tamil Nadu is mounting pressure on the Centre to vote against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The US is moving a motion against Sri Lanka on war crimes and rights violations against Tamil civilians during the final phase of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"We have repeatedly insisted on it. We will continue to insist. We hope they will realise and act according to our feelings. Not only us, Tamils across the world are eagerly looking forward to see India's decision," said M Karunanidhi, DMK chief. The DMK is the second biggest constituent of the UPA government at the Centre.

Last week in the Rajya Sabha, in a strong statement, the Tamil Nadu party had asked the government it participates in to decide whether it wants to be friends with Sri Lanka or then "with your brethren" in south India.

External Minister Salman Khurshid had said in Rajya Sabha that while the government shared the concern of the parties from Tamil Nadu, India would not intervene directly in Sri Lanka's sovereign affairs. The minister had said that "accountability must come from within Sri Lanka", but remained evasive on the position New Delhi will take at the UN on a resolution against Colombo.

India had supported the US motion last year and this time the international body would review how much Sri Lanka has implemented recommendations of its lessons learnt and reconciliation commission.

This comes at a time when new photographic evidences, released by the British media, suggest that LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's 12-year-old son Balachandran Prabhakaran could have been executed and that he may not have died in crossfire. In one photograph released by Britain's Channel 4, the 12-year-old is seen eating a snack while sitting in a green sandbag bunker guarded by a soldier. A second image shows his bullet-riddled bare-chested body. However, Sri Lanka has described these pictures as morphed.

Rights groups say up to 40,000 civilians were killed by security forces in the final months of a no-holds-barred offensive in 2009 that ended Sri Lanka's decades-long fight against Tamil separatists.

Sri Lanka denies causing civilian deaths, but Colombo faces a fresh censure resolution at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council session later this month.

On March 7, the DMK-led Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) would hold a conference in Delhi.