brand logo

Global Tamil Forum sceptical over President’s invite to Tamil diaspora

21 Sep 2021

  • Queries continued deferral of meeting sought by TNA
By Pamodi Waravita Whilst welcoming President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s recent invitation to the Tamil diaspora to meaningfully engage with the ruling administration to find an internal mechanism as a solution for the issues faced by the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, as a “progressive” move, the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) organisation, which represents a section of the vast Tamil diaspora community, however questioned reports that the President is continuously deferring requests for a meeting made by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which represents a section of the Tamil people within Sri Lanka. The President had made these remarks during his meeting with United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres on 20 September in New York, where he is at present to attend the UN General Assembly session. “The President wanting to engage with the Tamil diaspora is certainly a progressive move and we welcome it. However, when requests are made by democratically elected representatives of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka to meet with the President, they are deferred with flimsy excuses. Now from New York, he has declared that he wants to engage with us, the Tamil diaspora. We wonder why this sudden change of mind has occurred, when only six months ago, in March 2021, his Government proscribed organisations like the GTF and individuals like myself as ‘terrorists’,” GTF Spokesperson Suren Surendiran told The Morning yesterday (21). A meeting that was scheduled in June this year between the President and TNA Leader MP R. Sampanthan to discuss the ongoing constitutional reforms process was postponed by the former. The two leaders are yet to meet. In March 2021, the Government proscribed seven Tamil diaspora organisations and a number of individuals, including the GTF and Surendiran. According to the GTF, due to this ban, the potential loss of foreign currency income for Sri Lanka is over $ 300 million per year. Thus, Surendiran said, the President must first justify these actions. “As for the domestic mechanism that the President wants to talk to us about, in transitional justice, there are judicial and non-judicial processes. We will be very happy to engage and discuss the latter but as for the judicial mechanisms, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 30/1 describes what exactly needs to happen,” added Surendiran. Resolution 30/1 was adopted in 2015 by the UNHRC, during the tenure of former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera. The previous United National Front (UNF)-led Government co-sponsored this Resolution and agreed to establish a judicial process which would include foreign legal personnel to promote reconciliation and accountability of human rights violations which allegedly occurred during the civil war years. However, this judicial mechanism was not established and the Resolution received severe criticism from various parties within the country. Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris, whilst addressing the 48th UNHRC Session earlier this month, said that the Government rejects any external initiatives established by Resolution 46/1, which was adopted at the Council earlier this year, as it will polarise the Sri Lankan society, similar to what had occurred with the adoption of Resolution 30/1. “If the President so wishes, he can engage the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the relevant UN bodies and special mandate holders (Special Rapporteurs) and they will be very willing to progress the already adopted Resolutions,” noted Surendiran. He added that since the GTF is prepared to talk to anybody if the grievances of the Tamil people, and all Sri Lankans, are resolved, they had also met thrice with former President Maithripala Sirisena during the latter’s tenure in the post. “The GTF did not stop its engagement with the people of Sri Lanka just because of the ill-advised actions of this administration when proscribing us. Even recently, we facilitated millions of dollars worth of medical equipment to assist in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka.”


More News..