Sri Lankan Tamil party seeks UN probe into deaths

Agency: IANS-Sunday, Mar 31, 2013,

A Sri Lankan Tamil political party said on Sunday that it will continue to push for a UN mechanism to investigate alleged human rights abuses in the island nation.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) statement comes within days after one of their political gatherings came under a mob attack in the northern town of Killinochchi which was at one time the hub of the Tamil Tigers.

"Accountability is mostly important for Tamils. During and soon after the war hundreds of Tamils went missing. After the war many had surrendered to the army but their whereabouts is not known now. The parents of these people want answers," TNA MP Suresh Premachandran said.

He recalled that there erre conflicting reports on the number of civilians killed during Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war, with some in the government placing it at 5,000-7,000 and others placing it around 40,000-70,000.

Wanni Security Forces Commander Major General Boniface Perera said recently that several people were protesting against the government and the army over the missing people and demanding information about them.

He, however, said such protests were pointless, as the army did not know the whereabouts of those people said to have been missing.

Meanwhile, at least 13 people were injured when a mob attacked a political gathering of the TNA in northern Sri Lanka last week.

The attack happened during a meeting held at the house of a TNA MP, S Sritharan.

"At least four party MPs were attending the discussion... A group of people came carrying the national flag in one hand and stones and clubs in the other and attacked us," Suresh Premachandran said.

He said while 13 people were injured, the MPs escaped unhurt. One attacker was handed over to police.

Centre should respect Tamil Nadu's resolution on Sri Lanka: CPI

PTI | Mar 31, 2013,
THANJAVUR: The CPI on Sunday said the Centre should respect the resolution passed in the Tamil Nadu Assembly asking it to stop treating Sri Lanka as a friendly nation and to slap sanctions on it while demanding a referendum for a separate Tamil Eelam 

"The Centre's view that it need not respect the resolution is wrong," CPI leader D Pandian told reporters here. 

"If they (the Centre) thought that the Tamils' issue was an internal matter of Sri Lanka, why did they extend Rs 2,000 crore for the rehabilitation of displaced Tamils in the island nation," he asked. 

The Centre should respect that Tamil Nadu government was a democratically elected one, Pandian said apparently referring to External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid rejecting the state government's resolution. 

The Tamil Nadu assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Centre to slapeconomic embargo on Colombo till the "suppression" of Tamils was stopped and those responsible for "genocide and war crimes" faced an international probe.