"Education of the Sinhala south on the mass atrocities that occurred to the Tamils during the war is necessary to lay the groundwork for future prosecutions of Sinhala soldiers and commanders," said Pasumai Thaayagam in an oral statement to the Human Rights Council during its 32nd session this week.

Speaking under Item 9 relating to racism, Pasumai Thaayagam spoke about the need for the Sri Lankan government to address deep-rooted Sinhala nationalism in order to achieve accountability and justice. The form of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka "translates into a rejection of any attempt to prosecute the armed forces for mass atrocities," said Pasumai Thaayagam.

"If the new government is serious about implementing the Resolution, it must start doing the hard talk with the Sinhala electorate," they said.

Full statement can be found on the here and is also reproduced below.

Pasumai Thaayagam would like to take this opportunity to discuss how in order to see the implementation of Resolution 30/1 co-sponsored by Sri Lanka last year, the government must address deep-rooted Sinhala nationalism and an inherently racist state structure, which has plagued the country for 7 decades since independence. Resolution 30/1 was a monumental step in the path towards accountability, justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. However, while the Sri Lankan government has made certain steps towards implementing the Resolution, progress has been slow and inadequate, and victims have quickly become disillusioned by the government’s mixed messaging. While the government reassures international audiences including this Council that it is taking accountability seriously and is committed to reform and reconciliation, it says quite another to its domestic Sinhala Buddhist constituencies.

To the Sinhala South, the Sri Lankan government continues to use the language of protecting Buddhism and the armed forces and rejecting international actors. This only reinforces existing Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist views.. Buddhism in Sri Lanka is after all not just a religion but given the “foremost” place by article 9 of  Sri Lanka’s constitution.
 In practice, this translates into a rejection of any attempt to prosecute the armed forces for mass atrocities, who are instead labelled by Sri Lanka’s president as war heroes seen to be protecting the Sinhala Buddhist state. Sri Lanka continues to change the demographics of the Tamil North-East through state led colonisation projects and building of Buddhist shrines, instead of educating the Sinhala Buddhist south of the need to changes its heirarchichal status quo.

Education of the Sinhala south on the mass atrocities that occurred to the Tamils during the war is necessary to lay the groundwork for future prosecutions of Sinhala soldiers and commanders.

The Sri Lankan government must work towards informing their Sinhala electorate that the status quo of ethnic hierarchy and continuing impunity for horrific mass atrocities is unsustainable in a global economy in addition to being morally indefensible. This should be done as soon as possible to create an environment conducive to meaningful accountability, justice and reconciliation.

If the new government is serious about implementing the Resolution, it must start doing the hard talk with the Sinhala electorate. If instead it continues on its current course of taking certain superficial token steps in the Resolution to alleviate pressure of the international community whilst domestically pandering to Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism, the current opportunity presented by the Resolution will simply be washed away by the next tide of Sinhala nationalist mobilisation as have all previous ones.

Thank you [Mr. President].