The University of Jaffna Students’ Union is condemning a series of tweets by the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka that commits to protecting the regime against ‘accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and Genocide committed by the Sri Lankan state against the Tamil people” at the upcoming UNHRC session in Geneva.
On August 30, the Students’ Union issued a letter addressed to the Chinese envoy to Sri Lanka, Qi Zhenhong, denouncing ‘attempts by anti-Tamil mindset China to increase influence in the north and East, the traditional homeland of the Tamils [...] and condemn the Chinese Ambassador’s insensitive tweet which demean decades long suffering of our people.”
Will they help #SriLanka to ease its human rights crisis by providing concrete support?
— Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka (@ChinaEmbSL) August 26, 2022
Or will they again use human rights as a cover-up tool to interfere into internal affairs and continue to rub salt into the wound of #SriLankan people?
Just let’s wait and see.
15/ pic.twitter.com/EqhjCKjKa6
In the letter, the Students’ Union describe the tweets ad ‘irresponsible’ and detail the litany of human rights transgressions and ongoing genocide against Tamils by the Sri Lankan regime.
“China is well aware of the suffering Tamils have undergone during the war, including according to the UN over 70 thousand Tamils were killed during the last six months of the war, hundreds of Tamil women and girls were raped by Sri Lankan armed forces and thousands of Tamils, including babies, disappeared. According to UK foreign office, over 90 thousand Tamil war widows are in Tamils areas facing numerous hardships, including the large number of the army occupying Tamil areas.”
The letter continues by questioning the underlying intentions of the Chinese Ambassador in his previous attempts to lend support to Tamils in the country.
“We question the Chinese Ambassador’s sincerity when he visited Tamil areas and donated assistance to us. We wonder whether your visit to Nallur Murugan Temple in Veshti was an act to cheat Tamils. We expect you to act as a responsible country and urge you not to fish in troubled waters and take advantage of our suffering.”
The Students’ Union concludes by calling on Zhenhong to withdraw the tweets and support their call to refer Sri Lanka to the ICC at the upcoming 51st UNHRC session in Geneva.
Jaffna students have long resisted China’s bid to make inroads in the North-East, citing fears that Tamils could fall into a “debt trap” as Sri Lanka has and that “[...] an increasing Chinese influence on Colombo would embolden the latter to continue its policy of not yielding to the Tamils’ long-standing demand for autonomy.”
Following opposition from the Students’ Union, an event to be hosted by the University of Jaffna to sign a collaboration agreement between the Agriculture Faculty and a Chinese Agricultural Institute was recently canceled. As a result, Zhenhong’s visit to Jaffna had also been called off.
In the thread, China also propagated against India, by saying that Sri Lanka has “overcome aggression from its northern neighbour 17 times, colonization by the west for 450 years, and an anti-terrorism war for nearly 3 decades, and is now still standing in the world bravely and proudly.”
The tweets come as hostility between China and India continues to rise.
Writing in the Sri Lankan Guardian, the Chinese envoy recently sparked outrage as he publicly attacked India for its attempt to block a Chinese military vessel, “Yuan Wang 5”, from docking at the southern Sri Lankan port of Hambantota and slammed the US House Speaker’s visit to Taiwan.
Read more.
