Mr. President, Distinguished Members of the Human Rights Council, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. President, we meet at a moment of enormous historical importance, when people across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond are rising up to demand their fundamental civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. When popular protests began erupting earlier this year in North Africa and the Middle East, it was quickly dubbed "the Arab Spring", a phrase which captured intense optimism and appeared to herald a new era of freedom and hope. People, especially the young, peacefully...
The British government’s delay in seeking international justice for victims of genocide must be a matter of continuing shame for our country.
The text of a speech delivered on behalf of the Tamil Youth Organisation at the vigil in London on May 18, 2011.
The text of a speech delivered on behalf of the British Tamil Forum at the vigil in London on May 18, 2011.
The below is an extract from Human rights Watch’s open letter to Canada’s newly elected government on human rights priorities (see full text here ). In June 2010, Canada's Parliament passed the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. Human Rights Watch is concerned about the act's "safe-country of origin" provision, which allows the minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism to designate certain countries or parts of countries as "safe." The application of this provision is problematic. It is impossible to make a blanket determination that any country is safe for everyone, and the criteria by which the minister would make such a determination are unclear.
© Chappatte in 'International Herald Tribune' - www.globecartoon.com , 2009. Reproduced with permission.
Robert Blake is the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. The below is extracted from his comments on May 4 at the American Centre in Colombo (see full transcript here ). The United States attaches great importance to the dialogue that is now taking place between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The government and the TNA have conducted several rounds of talks with another round scheduled for May 12th. I hope that these talks can result in a comprehensive agreement that can help Sri Lanka heal the wounds of war and ensure that all Sri Lankans enjoy...
The below is the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) response to the UN expert panel's report on Sri Lanka (edited for brevity): We have read the disclosure made by the media, said to be the Executive Summary of the Report submitted by the Advisory Panel to the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG). The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), as the democratically elected representatives of the Tamil People of the North East, who have been the worst affected victims of the recently concluded war, we consider it our duty to respond to same, while reserving a fuller response to the full Report after it...
" The role of India and the US is probably going to determine whether the pressure mounts on Sri Lanka or the [UN expert panel's] report is quickly forgotten. If one takes a cue from developments over recent years, Colombo’s successful prosecution of the war would not have been possible without both overt support and sins of omission and commission by both New Delhi and Washington ." - An extract from a comment in the May 2011 issue of Himal magazine. See here for the full comment.
Based on leaked extracts, the UN expert panel’s report on Sri Lanka constitutes a watershed moment in international understanding of the crimes committed in the closing phase of the war in Sri Lanka. Crucially, although the word does not appear in the extracts, the report’s contents well supports the charge that Sri Lanka engaged in genocide of the Tamils. The report lays out in detail the calculated, deliberate and systematic targeting of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan armed forces, operating under the direct command of the country’s top political leadership. The former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, has aptly termed the publishing of the UN experts’ report as a ‘Srebrenica’ moment for Sri Lanka and indeed for the world. The analogy is correct on many counts. Firstly, it was in relation to Srebrenica that the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) most clearly formulated the principle that part destruction – specifically, a geographically contained (i.e a small territory) destruction - of an ethnic or national group constituted genocide.