US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Alaina B. Teplitz, has met with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader, M.A. Sumanthiran to discuss the upcoming 46th UN Human Rights Council session in March and bring forwards a new UN resolution.
Whilst Sumanthiran has drafted a letter in support of a new resolution, this has been fiercely criticised by the leader of the Tamizh Makkal Thesya Kootanii (TMTK) C V Wigneswaran who argued that it simply rolled back the earlier resolution and gave Sri Lanka “further time”.
The call for a new resolution follows the Sri Lankan government’s withdrawal from the co-sponsored UN Resolution 30/1, which had been rolled back twice. Wigneswaran stated that the drafting of a new resolution would only call on the international community “to extend the favours that have already been granted to a genocidal government”.
In his statement he noted:
“I am not saying that we should oppose the UNHRC resolution or should not engage with the UNHRC […] Instead, we must take action to further strengthen and make sense of the UNHRC resolution.”
Read more here: Wigneswaran calls for Independent Investigative Mechanism and UN Special Rapporteur on Sri Lanka
Wigeneswaran, as well as TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambamal, have instead called for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to a persistent failure to deal with the issue of accountability.
These calls for accountability follow mounting pressure on Sri Lanka, with the US discontinuing the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) earlier this week due to “lack of partner country engagement”.
UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary A. DiCarlo, is expected to make a high-profile visit to Sri Lanka early next year.
