Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament that his government “will never accept an international war crimes tribunal” in a lengthy statement delivered on Thursday.

The prime minister accused the island’s media of engaging “in witch hunting” and called upon “the newspapers to clean up the mess in their institutions”.

Mr Wickremesinghe went on to state:

"We will never accept an international war crimes tribunal. I never approved the Rome Statute. Sovereignty lies with the people according to our Constitution. Our Supreme Court is one of the oldest in the world.

Our Constitution has specified how the members of the Supreme Court are appointed. Judges have to be Sri Lankans. We cannot go against that provision. Those who come to the Court under the provisions of the Constitution should accept the ruling of the court. If foreigners come to appear for some others they should first obtain the permission from the Supreme Court. If the court permits them we cannot do anything about it. Giving them permission is not our task."

He went on to add that his government “will never betray the forces”.

The leader of the Tamil National Alliance R Sampanthan and Parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran joined a constitutional workshop in Scotland, to discuss possible solutions for Sri Lanka.

The workshop which began on Friday, was hosted by academics affiliated to Edinburgh University, with lessons to be learnt from the Scottish experience in the United Kingdom.

The Tamil National Alliance leadership had a brief meeting with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth  Office in London before heading to Scotland Tamil Guardian learns.

Tamil Nadu fishermen entered the fourth day of their strike over the Sri Lankan government's refusal to release their seized fishing boats.

According to the Times of India, over 200,000 fishermen in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are striking and have threatened to intensify their protest by blocking Karaikal port.

The lack of proper investigations over the issue of disappearances sends a message of impunity to the perpetrators, said US Ambassador Samantha Power, in an address to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Speaking on the ‘Global Challenge of Accounting for Missing Persons’, Ms Power drew on her recent visits to Mexico and Sri Lanka, where she travelled to Jaffna and met with families of the disappeared.

Ms Power stated that both communities showed that there was an “enduring and all-encompassing, searing pain and hardship experienced by families who have had a loved one disappear”.

“In many instances, families’ sense of impotence was exacerbated by the routine failure of authorities to take basic steps to search for the missing or to bring to justice those responsible,” she added. “The lack of proper investigations doesn’t just hurt families – it also sends a message to perpetrators that they can continue to disappear people with impunity.”

“In both Mexico and Sri Lanka, I heard from families who reported cases to authorities, only to see them sit on key investigative leads or misplace crucial evidence,” she continued. “Others were discouraged or even threatened by the very officials whose job it was to help them.”

Ms Power went on to add:

“In Jaffna, Sri Lanka, just a couple months ago a mother told me how, in March of 2009 she had seen men in military uniforms abduct her 16-year-old daughter, and had been beaten when she tried to intervene. Yet despite promptly reporting that crime to officials, the mother told me, she had never heard anything back. She has spent nearly every day of the six years since searching for her daughter, whose whereabouts remain unknown.”

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena “appears to be indicating a withdrawal from the obligations” his government has committed to, said a statement signed by Tamil and sections of Sri Lankan civil society groups on Thursday.

The statement, which condemned Mr Sirisena’s recent comments, said the Sri Lankan government negotiated a consensus resolution passed at the 30th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in October 2015, and “now appears to be backtracking from even these compromised commitments”.

“Of particular concern was his accusation, quite similar to that of his predecessor, that those who allege such things have an LTTE connection,” added the statement, endorsed by 144 groups and individuals.

The civil society organisations also noted that just days later Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said his government would abide by commitments given in Geneva, stating:

“These contradictions between the President and the Prime Minister are however not new and have been a constant feature of the Government’s public communications about their commitments under the resolution ever since the resolution was passed”.