Sri Lanka claims victory at UN despite failing to halt resolution

by Thusiyan
Mar 23, 2021

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister addressed a press conference in Colombo earlier today, where he claimed that a UN resolution on accountability in Sri Lanka had “failed”, despite it passing just hours earlier with 22 votes in favour to 14 votes against and 11 abstentions.

In a last minute press conference, Dinesh Gunawardena told reporters that the resolution was “a waste of money” and “highly uncalled for”.

“Without the consent and acceptance of the country concerned, it cannot be implemented,” he continued.

The foreign minister also declared that the resolution had “failed,” as he claimed Sri Lanka had the support of the majority of the council counting the abstentions and votes against the resolution. Gunawardena added that the supposed "failure" of the resolution was "a very happy moment for us".

He went on to tweet his thanks to the member states that abstained or voted against the move.

The resolution will mandate the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to "collect" as well as "consolidate, analyse and preserve” evidence that could be used in future war crimes trials.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button