TGTE Urges US / UN Ambassador Samantha Power to Help Initiate Sri Lanka Int’l Investigation Under UN Article 99
In a letter sent to the US Ambassador to the UN Ms. Samantha Power, the Prime Minister of Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, urged Ms. Power to exercise US diplomatic and moral power to persuade UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to appoint an International Investigation on Sri Lanka, under Article 99 of the UN Charter.
It was pointed out in that letter that UN’s Expert Panel Report on Sri Lanka, the UN Internal Review Report on Sri Lanka and one of the UN Expert Panelist Professor Steven Ratner have all concluded that there is neither the political environment nor the judicial environment in Sri Lanka for dispensing justice domestically. (Accountability and the Sri Lankan Civil War 106 Am. J. Int'l L, 795). Thus justice can be achieved only through international means.
Given the political considerations prevalent in the UN Human Rights Council, the TGTE believes an international investigation could be established under Article 99 of the U.N. Charter. The letter noted that U.N. Secretary General’s own legal advisors, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Crisis Group also espoused this same opinion.
Tolerating impunity sets a bad precedent for other countries emulating the “Sri Lankan solution” in addressing their own national conflicts. Needless to say, this is a threat to international peace and security.
TGTE congratulates Samantha Powers on her Senate Confirmation of her appointment as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N.
TGTE is mobilizing international civil society to apply moral pressure on the UN Secretary General, to appoint an international investigation on Sri Lanka.
It was brought to Ambassador Power’s attention that the TGTE is in the process of collecting endorsements from 1000 Non- Government organizations for investigations on Sri Lanka under Article 99 of the U.N. Charter.
BACKGROUND:
Tamils have faced repeated mass killings since 1958 and that the killings in 2009 prompted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a Panel of Experts to report on the scale of killings. According to this UN report tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed in five months due to deliberate and intense shelling and bombing of areas designated by the government as "no-fire zones", where Tamil civilians had assembled for safety.
The Sri Lankan Government also restricted food and medicine for Tamils, resulting in large numbers of people dying from starvation and many of the injured bleeding to death.
According to the UN Panel, the killings and other abuses that took place amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Independent experts believe that there are elements of these abuses that constitute an act of genocide.
The UN Human Rights Council looked into this mass killing and passed two Resolutions on accountability for these international crimes in 2012 and 2013.
According to Bishop of Mannar, Dr. Rayappu Joseph, 146,679 Tamils went missing when Sri Lankan forces attacked Tamil people. Members of the Sri Lankan security forces are almost exclusively from the Sinhalese community and the victims are all from the Tamil community.
ABOUT TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL EELAM (TGTE):
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) is a new political concept, formed after the mass killing of Tamils in the final months of the war.
It is a political formation based on the principles of nationhood, homeland and self-determination. The raison dâetre for the TGTE is lack of political space inside the island of Sri Lanka for the Tamils to articulate and realize their political aspirations fully due to Constitutional impediments, racist political environment and military strangulation; and the coordination of diaspora political activities based on democratic principles and the rule of law.
TGTE held internationally supervised elections in 12 countries. These elections were held to ensure that core believe of democracy be upheld within the TGTE and to demonstrate TGTE’s belief and reliance upon democratic ideals. TGTE has a bicameral legislature and a Cabinet. Although an elected body, TGTE does not claim to be a government in exile. The Constitution of the TGTE mandates that it should realize its political objective only through peaceful means.
Presently, in addition to the campaign for an international investigation, the TGTE is also campaigning for an International Protection Mechanism and the release of documents pertaining to Tamils prepared by the Office of the Special Advisor of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide. TGTE is also in the process of preparing the Freedom Charter incorporating the “freedom demands” of Tamils across the globe.
TGTE believes that the referendum among the Tamils inside the island of Sri Lanka and the Tamil diaspora will contribute to the political resolution of the Tamil national conflict. So far, the human cost has reached 100,000 as it grows. There are also 90,000 Tamil war widows, facing sexual abuse by the Sri Lankan security forces.
Contact: Mahinthan Sivasubramanium, TGTE's Minister for Political Prisoners & IDPs
Email: mahinthan@hotmail.fr
Mahinthan Sivasubramanian
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)
+(33-6)2166-7177 or +(33-6)2213-1883
email us here
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