2nd lead: adds motion text
Sri Lanka’s parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a motion rejecting the UN investigation into wartime atrocities, with only the Tamil National Alliance voting against.
144 government and allied MPs voted for the motion, while 10 MPs of the TNA voted against.
The main opposition UNP abstained, while the JVP was absent.
The government-allied SLMC boycotted parliament as a protest against the government’s ‘failure to protect’ Muslims during recent violence by Buddhist mobs. A Muslim minister in Rapaksa’s UPFA, Rishard Badurdeen was also absent.
The motion, which had been debated for two days, reads:
"That this Parliament resolves that the investigation to be conducted against Sri Lanka by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights should not be carried out on the ground that such a course of action is detrimental to the process of reconciliation and peace and that it erodes the sovereignty, dignity and stature of Sri Lanka."
See also our editorial of May 13, ‘Silences between the shouts’