The Northern Provincial Council passed a resolution today calling on the UN inquiry to investigate the genocide of the Tamil people by the Sri Lankan government and recommend appropriate measures for the International Criminal Court in order to ensure prosecutions.
See draft resolution here.
The resolution, tabled by the chief minister of the province, Justice C V Wigneswaran, was passed with an overwhelming majority around 9.30am local time.
"This resolution provides as overview of the evidence demonstrating successive Sri Lankan governments' genocide against Tamils, and respectfully requests the ongoing United Nations Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) to investigate the claim of genocide and recommend appropriate investigations and prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC)," the resolution read.
"Although the OISL investigation is a time-bound effort focused on February 2002 – November 2011, Sri Lanka’s genocide against Tamils began with the island’s independence. Since then, Tamils across Sri Lanka, particularly in the historical Tamil homeland of the NorthEast, have been subject to gross and systematic human rights violations, culminating in the mass atrocities committed in 2009. Sri Lanka’s historic violations include over 60 years of state sponsored anti-Tamil pogroms, massacres, sexual violence, and acts of cultural and linguistic destruction perpetrated by the state. These atrocities have been perpetrated with the intent to destroy the Tamil people, and therefore constitute genocide."
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