Refer Sri Lanka to International Criminal Court (ICC) : TGTE

” The international crimes were committed by the state itself. An accused cannot be their own judge “

https://www.einpresswire.com/article/537293687/refer-sri-lanka-to-international-criminal-court-icc-tgte

Justice delayed is justice denied. It has been 12 long years since the height of the Tamil Genocide conducted by the Sri Lankan State, and Tamils are still seeking justice in the midst of a return to an increasingly hostile and dangerous environment on the island. The Sri Lankan government has failed to advance accountability and only aggressively moves forward in its efforts to destroy the distinct character of the Tamil Nation, coupled with illegal land acquisition to destroy the territorial integrity of the Tamil homeland. The existence of this homeland is recognized in various pacts including the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord.

In April 29, 2011 the TGTE wrote a letter to the UN Secretary General, His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon requesting that he refer those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against the Tamil people to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation. At that time TGTE also urged the UN Secretary General to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate international crimes that had taken place in the island of Sri Lanka against the Tamil people. In support of the above demands TGTE submitted more than 100,000 petitions signed by individuals to the Secretary General’s Office.

In 2015, a TGTE launched a signature campaign titled an “Urgent Appeal to the United Nations” gathered an unprecedented 1.6 million signatures worldwide (www.tgte-icc.org). That is, 1.6 million people worldwide called for the referral of Sri Lanka to the ICC for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, committed during and after the war that ended in 2009. Instead, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a consensus resolution calling on the Sri Lankan government to establish an accountability mechanism with the participation of foreign judges. However, the Sri Lankan government repudiated its commitment to the transitional justice called for in that resolution in spirit as well as in its 2020 letter to the Council. We firmly believe that neither a domestic mechanism nor a hybrid mechanism will result in any kind of justice for the Tamil people. The stated commitment by the Sri Lankan government to implement domestic accountability processes, while it explicitly showed it would not cooperate with the international community by pulling out of UNHRC’s resolution 30/1, is an attempt to deflect the call for the referral of Sri Lanka to the ICC. Sri Lanka means to delay any real actions that can be taken to bring us closer towards accountability and justice.

The primary reason for the call for referral to ICC is that the Sri Lankan state is permeated with entrenched and pervasive racism, thus there is no space for Tamils to obtain justice domestically. In addition, according to the report of the Panel of Experts appointed by the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and the reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the international crimes were committed by the state itself. An accused cannot be their own judge.

Tamil victims of Sri Lanka’s international crimes, including Tamils who have had to flee Sri Lanka, therefore believe that only through the referral of Sri Lanka to the ICC can justice be done for the Tamil victims. Today, the call for referral of Sri Lanka to the ICC has become the foremost element in the accountability discourse on Tamil Genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed against Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. The call for the referral of Sri Lanka to the ICC has been urged by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, four former High Commissioners for Human Rights, thirteen former UN Special Rapporteurs who visited Sri Lanka, members of the Expert Panel, the Tamil domestic political leadership, Tamil Civil Society, Tamil religious leaders, Tamil diaspora organizations, and international NGOs. This year the second generation of diaspora has also rallied around this call and launched a signature campaign which more than 64,000 signatures were obtained (https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-eelam-united-nations-human-rights-council-session-46). This itself has been a victory for the Tamil cause, as Tamils have endured decades of injustice.

The UK Government, the penholder of the tabled Resolution stated that there is “insufficient UN Security Council support” for it. In response to the above, Honorable Stephen Kinnock, Member of Parliament in the UK stated “We fully acknowledge that two of the permanent members of the Security Council would likely veto such a referral were it to be tabled, but this is not an acceptable argument against trying. The UK government’s approach to the UN Security Council should not be determined simply by the veto-wielding intentions of two of its permanent members”. In this connection, the observation made by Honorable Siobhain McDonagh who moved the debate in the UK Parliament on the tabled Resolution on March 18, 2021 merits special attention:

“I turn to the current resolution, to which the UK is a penholder. Disappointingly, it falls short. First, there is no recommendation to pursue criminal accountability by referral to the International Criminal Court. I could barely believe my eyes reading the Government’s reasoning, citing “insufficient…Security Council support”. Who are we to cast the veto for China or Russia before they have done so themselves? Our role on the international stage must be to send the loudest message that impunity will not be tolerated, not to pre-empt the inaction of other nations”

Referral of Sri Lanka to the ICC should not be viewed as an end itself. It is a process. This process will legitimize the Tamils’ claim that there is no space for justice for Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka; this process will demonstrate our cry for global justice, it will also intensify and sharpen the Tamil issue in the international arena; even though it is blocked by the exercise of a veto in the Security Council, the state of Sri Lanka will be perceived as a genocidal state and war crime state. Referral will also push states to take sides in the national conflict in the island of Sri Lanka in the UN Security Council and by extension in the world at large.

A putative vetoed resolution at the Security Council is much better than referring accountability to a domestic mechanism in Sri Lanka as proposed by the current tabled resolution. TGTE believes that a vetoed resolution will make democratic powers act in unison and take punitive actions against the Sri Lankan state, independent of the UN.

Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran
Prime Minister
Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE)