Tamil National Alliance MP M A Sumanthiran has hit out at the government’s insincerity in addressing accountability issues.
In a speech to the Sri Lankan parliament on Friday, Mr Sumanthiran said that only an independent international investigation can break the cycle of impunity and prevent the return of violence.
“You talk so much about reconciliation. If you’re serious about reconciliation, your concern will be that of the victims. If victims are to recover from their trauma, justice and accountability are a necessary part of that. That is so, because to bring closure to a collective and personal grief; to ensure genuine reconciliation, to break the cycle of impunity in Sri Lanka, and to ensure against a return to violence, we need to put in place a credible and independent mechanism for accountability. [...]
"That can happen only by the appointment of an independent international investigation […] Everyone who knows this country, knows that no internal arrangement will ever be independent, and that is why we have consistently requested that it must be international to ensure that it is independent.”
Mr Sumanthiran also accused the government of attempting to hide human rights violations, like the killings of the 17 aid workers in Muttur and the 5 students in Trincomalee.
“I wish to tell this Government most categorically, that none of those matters will ever be forgotten. Matters of justice, quests for justice, can never be quenched by sweeping these things under the carpet.”
The MP criticised repeated, unnecessary appointments of various committees by the government, questioning the motives for delaying the implementation of constitutional amendments and recommendations of the LLRC.
“Merely appointing committees and ensuring that nothing comes out of those committees is no way of demonstrating to the world that you’re serious about finding a political solution. This is the same with regard to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission as well.
"Why should the LLRC recommend that there must be Rule of Law? That the Constitution must be implemented? […]Why should an inter agency advisory committee be appointed – yet another committee – when interim recommendations are made by the LLRC?
“If the LLRC makes interim recommendations, implement those. It is for that that you appointed that Commission in the first place. Now it has given its final report, you have gone and appointed yet another committee to advise you on what of that can be implemented, and when that report comes a further committee will be appointed, and when that comes another committee will be appointed, and this pattern keeps going on and on and on.”
For full transcript of speech please see here.
