Sri Lanka on Thursday formally called on the US House
Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) not to proceed with H. RES. 413 on Sri Lanka
moved by Congresswoman Deborah Ross (Democrat/North Carolina) on 18 May. In a
letter addressed to HFAC Chair Representative Gregory Meeks (Democrat/New York)
and Ranking Member Representative Michael McCaul (Republican/Texas), Sri Lanka’s
Ambassador to the USA Ravinatha Aryasinha said: “Sri Lanka vehemently opposes
the contents of the Resolution which contains allegations relating to Sri Lanka
that are inaccurate, biased and unsubstantiated, raising grave suspicion
regarding the intention of the Resolution.”
The letter was accompanied by a
detailed analysis of the Resolution, which laid out paragraph by paragraph, its
prejudicial nature. The Ambassador observed that the proposed resolution which
equates the LTTE – proscribed by the US since 1997 and named by the FBI in 2008
as ‘among the most dangerous and deadly extremists in the world’ – to an ‘armed
independence organisation’, exposes the Resolution’s origins and purpose. The
Resolution encourages separatism and questions even the nature of the Sri Lanka
State, by references to ‘Traditional Tamil Homelands’.
This not only
misrepresents established historical facts, and present-day realities, but also
contributes to supporting the dismemberment of Sri Lanka, which is the ultimate
goal of the LTTE and its supporters. Ambassador Aryasinha said the resolution’s
wilful ignorance of the USA’s own security concerns about the LTTE and its front
organisations and efforts at glorification of terrorism would give inspiration
to rump elements of the LTTE and its numerous front organisations within the US
and across the world, as well as to other terrorist organisations. Observing
that the USA had been “a consistent defence partner of Sri Lanka, including in
Sri Lanka’s war against terror,” the Ambassador said:
“The Resolution which is
at significant variance with stated US policy, across Administrations – both
Democratic and Republican, may lead to an erroneous conclusion that the House
supports armed acts to achieve political goals. This would undermine the US
Administration’s own foreign policy foundation of being rooted in democratic
values, and negatively impact the warm bilateral relations between Sri Lanka and
the USA.” It asserted that the Sri Lanka Government, having struggled for nearly
30 years to defeat LTTE terrorism, consistent with its constitutional duties to
protect its citizens regardless of race, religion, language, caste, sex,
political opinion or place of birth, launched a humanitarian operation to
protect and liberate all Sri Lankans.
It also outlined the measures taken by the
Government since the defeat of terrorism in May 2009, to address the needs of
300,000 internally displaced who had been used as human shields by the
retreating LTTE, to rebuild and develop infrastructure in the conflict-affected
areas and to restore livelihood opportunities to many, including to over 12,000
ex-LTTE combatants – also comprising 596 child soldiers, who were rehabilitated
and reintegrated into the society. Ambassador Aryasinha recalled that following
the ending of the conflict, the then government in 2013 conducted Northern
Provincial Council elections, ensuring democratic freedoms and rights to the
people of the north.
He noted that since 2017, all minority parties in
Parliament, including the TNA, supported the deferral of elections, through a
ruling that required electoral reform prior to holding PC elections, which never
materialised. For nearly three years, the HRC or Western countries having not
taken issue with the delay of elections to Provincial Councils, including that
of the Northern Province, however, presently have projected it as a major issue,
at a time the current Government has taken the initiative to appoint a
Parliamentary Committee to make recommendations on this matter. Noting that
reports on Sri Lanka cited in the Resolution, including the OISL Report of 2015,
constituted a mere subjective narrative of events including ‘desk-reviewed’
information, the Ambassador said that these documents failed to reveal sources
and were not verifiable.
On the contrary, there was an abundance of verifiable
evidence that has been ignored, contained in, inter alia, the Lessons Learnt
Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the ‘Paranagama Commission’, reports from the
UN and international agencies including the UNDP, UNICEF and the ICRC, as well
as information presented before the UK House of Lords by Lord Naseby challenging
among other things the vastly-exaggerated civilian casualty figures. Expert
opinions including by international legal luminaries, as well as dispatches in
real time by Colonel Anton Gash, Military Attaché of the British High Commission
in Colombo and statements by Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith who had served as Defence
Attaché of the US Embassy during the last phase of the conflict, also contested
this narrative.
Ambassador Aryasinha also observed that, having had Sri Lanka
co-sponsor UN Resolution 30/1 in October 2015 and extracted a commitment that
Sri Lanka would initiate an accountability mechanism which would include foreign
judges and lawyers, which was unconstitutional, for five years neither the UN
bodies nor the US and other proponents of this resolution, pressed the previous
Government to carry out its promises.
He said, calling for an ‘international
mechanism’ at this juncture was sinister, at a time the present Government had
provided a credible transparent domestic process to address the concerns raised,
by in January 2021 instituting a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCOI),
which had on 4 March “invited any person, persons or organisations to submit
written representations or information or any other material which relates to
the above for the Commission to inquire”. The Commission has been conducting
hearings since April and heard testimony from witnesses.
