The British Tamils Forum (BTF), on behalf of the British Tamil community and the Tamil people living around the globe, welcomes and expresses its sincere gratitude for the government of Canada’s decision to impose sanctions on the former Sri Lankan presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa with and including two other Sri Lankan military officials Sunil Ratnayake and the navy commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi for their gross and systematic violations of human rights in Sri Lanka.
The BTF also takes this opportunity to reiterate its praises the government of the United States of America for duly imposing sanctions on five Sri Lankan perpetrators for the human rights violations of war crimes, the crimes against humanity and genocide in Sri Lanka.
The foregoing decisions by two world leaders is an indication that the world at large is beginning to see the true side of the crimes continuously committed by the Sri Lankan state on Tamil people. The hegemony of the chauvinistic Sinhala-Buddhist governments have continuously been fooling the international community under the guise of democracy.
While we salute the world including the government of the United Kingdom for taking timely actions of imposing sanctions against the countries such as Russia, Belarus, Iran, etc for their human rights violations, we are concerned that the government of the United Kingdom and the European countries have not taken any positive steps hitherto for prosecuting the perpetrators of the human rights violations of war crimes, the crimes against humanity and genocide in Sri Lanka.
The urge that the UK and the European countries had in imposing sanctions against the countries like Russia, Belarus and Iran has not been applied against Sri Lanka despite the availability of the mechanism of the Universal jurisdiction.
Such dithering is upsetting while the UNHRC, Civil Societies, and other countries recognise the Sri Lankan perpetrators for their role in serious human rights violations in their reports.
We have raised several concerns through the Members of Parliaments, All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG T), INGOs and Civil Societies with letters and meetings on this matter, it is now more than 13 years since the end of the war, the government of the United Kingdom is pacifying with promises, but there has been no action taken to date.
The human rights violations in Sri Lanka against Tamil people are still subtly continuing under the smokescreen of Sri Lanka’s current economic crisis and the future of Tamil people in their homeland is still in peril.
There have been several ways the government of the United Kingdom could have exercised its legitimate power to secure the human rights. Despite of continued outcries of the Tamil communities in the United Kingdom, the non-action of the UK government is displeasing.
By this message, we would urge the UK government to take it seriously and make righteous decision to prevail human rights and to establish justice to the Tamil victims.
In the meantime, we would reiterate the UNHRC’s September 2015 release of the list of serious Human Rights Violations as named by the OHCHR Investigation of Sri Lanka (OISL) for the UK government’s due action using the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime Act.
- Gotabaya Rajapaksa
- Mahinda Rajapaksa
- Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva
- Major General Sathyapriya Liyasnage
- Major General Kamal Gunaratne
- Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe
- Major General Nanda Mallawarchcha
- Colonel G V Ravipriya
- Brigadier Prasanna Silva
- Major General Jagath Dias
- Admiral Wasantha Kumar Jayadewa Karannagoda
- Admiral Thisara S G Samarasinghe
- Admiral Dissanayake Wijesinghe Arachchilage Somatilake Dissanayake
- Major Gerneral Jagath Jayasuriya
- Brigadier Nandana Udawatta
- Brigadier Chagie Gallage
- C N Wakishta
- General Sarath Fonseka
We trust that the government of the United Kingdom will take our concerns seriously and take a prompt action soon.
