by Tamil National Peoples Front, March 5, 2025
Tamil National People’s Front
(All Ceylon Tamil Congress)
No: 43, 3rd Cross Street,
Jaffna
05 March 2025
Heads of Missions in Geneva of the Core Group on Sri Lanka
Your Excellencies,
Regarding a new resolution on Sri Lanka at the 58th session of the UNHRC
We refer to the joint letter dated 15 January 2021 and our letters dated 24 February 2021, 8
September 2021 and 25 February 2022.
Before the said resolution was passed and when its “zero” draft was released, we pointed out that
we were disappointed with the previous resolutions in that they did not even meet the basic
expectations of the Tamil victims, especially in relation to international accountability for grave
violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. We further pointed out that
the resolutions’ framing of issues was highly problematic and failed to locate them in the
political context accurately and we went on to state the following: –
1. We pointed out that all previous resolutions stagnates accountability at the UNHRC in
Geneva. It in effect gives further time to Sri Lanka by calling for a) strengthen the Office of
the High Commissioner on Human Rights work in relation to the consolidation, preservation
and analysis of evidence in relation to the violations that took place and b) to explore
strategies for accountability. The High Commissioner had been asked to report back to the
Council on these measures from the passage of the resolution at various intervals during
which time the victims were further alienated from any real prospects for justice and
accountability.
2. As we indicated in our letter dated 15 January 2021, as highlighted by the OHCHR in its
January 2021 report and by the joint letter issued by former UN officials and independent
experts including two former UN High Commissioners for Human Rights, we reiterate that
the core group which includes two members of the UN Security Council must initiate steps to
table a resolution in the UN Security Council to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal
Court to inquire into all crimes committed, including the crime of genocide against the Tamil
people. We pointed out that the matter being brought to the UNSC in itself would bring
attention and urgency to Sri Lanka’s chronic evasion of accountability and hence we urged
that the core group signal their intention to bring forth a resolution to the UNSC for ICC
referral without further delay.
3. We also urged that consequent to efforts taken at the UNSC to refer Sri Lanka to the ICC that
a resolution is presented to the UN General Assembly providing for an independent
mechanism of evidence collection that would assist a future ICC referral.
4. We asked that the resolution be amended to include the appointment of a Special Rapporteur
to report on ongoing violations in Sri Lanka and the establishment of OHCHR field offices in
the North and East.
5. We pointed out that previous resolutions fail to recognise that the Government continues to
use the military and government departments to expropriate the lands of Tamil people in the
North-East under the guise of security, development, archaeological research and
conservation, and fails to recognise the lack of progress over release of land held by the Sri
Lankan Armed Forces. It fails to take note of the fact that the occupational presence of the Sri
Lankan Armed Forces in the Tamil speaking North-East particularly in the backdrop of no
security sector reforms having been undertaken and where these very same armed forces are
so pervasively accused of the gravest crimes known to international law.
6. We also pointed out our concern that the resolution gives credence to the Office of Missing .
Persons and the Office of Reparations. Both these institutions are flawed in their original
design and purpose.
7. We also categorically stated that we refuse to accept the 13th amendment to Sri Lanka’s
present constitution even as a starting point to the resolution of the Tamil National Question.
Given the repeated failures of successive Governments both during the war and post-war to
meet the political aspirations of the Tamil nation, namely, the enactment of a new
constitution that recognises Sri Lanka as pluri-national federal state comprising of the
Sinhala Nation and the Tamil Nation, both sovereign in their own right and exercising each
of its right to self determination. We further called for Tamil People as a Nation be given an
opportunity to exercise its right to self-determination and freely determine its political
status. The rejection of the Tamil people of the 13th amendment is further underlined by the
historic political rallies that took place on the 30th January 2022 in Jaffna and the 13th March
2
2022 in Vavuniya with massive crowds rarely seen since the MULLIVAAIKAAL Genocide
in 2009, endorsing the KITTU POONGA DECLARATION that rejected the unitary State
concept and the 13th amendment as not being even a starting point for negotiations.
8. Several years have passed since the first resolution was passed on Sri Lanka in 2012 and
every single warning that we alluded to have been proved to be true. In addition, innocent
Tamil political prisoners continue to languish in jail, even after key ministers including the
minister of Justice proclaiming that the law under which these prisoners have been detained,
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), is unjust and needs to be repealed. We insist that the
repeal of the PTA is the only sure way of preventing further grave injustices and we wish to
further stress that no law to replace the PTA should be brought.
The land grabbing by the Government in the North and East to pursue its agenda of
Sinhalization and Buddhisization of the Tamil Homeland has become far worse. The
Government, through the Mahaveli Development Authority, Forest Department, Wildlife
Department and Archaeology Department have accelerated their confiscation of lands under
various guises and is subsequently reallocating them for Sinhala colonisation schemes to
change the demography of the area and make the Tamils a minority in their own Homeland.
In the field of fishing, which forms the backbone of the Tamil people’s economy, the
Government, through the Navy encourages Sinhala fishermen from areas outside the North and
East to fish in the North and East waters using illegal and banned methods. This practice has
been further extended to fishermen from South India who are also allowed by the Navy to
encroach into the North and East waters to the complete detriment of the local Tamil fishermen.
The encroaching Indian fishermen have been destroying the fishing equipment of the local
Tamil fishermen in the process. This policy of the government and the Navy is deliberately
pauperising the local Tamil fishermen.
Development works that have been undertaken by the Government in the North and the East
have also been used to further disadvantage the local Tamil population and instead provide
strategic advantages to outside Sinhalese fishermen. The most striking example of this practice
can be seen in the Myliddy Fisheries Harbour. The latter was developed in 2018 purportedly to
improve the facilities provided to the local fishing population. However, since the development
work has been partially completed, none of the local Tamil fishermen are allowed to anchor
their boats in the Harbour and instead it is only used by Sinhala fishermen who don’t belong to
the North or the East but who encroach into such waters for a lucrative catch.
It is the lived 77 years collective experience of the Tamil people that any further delay in not
taking steps to have Sri Lanka referred to the ICC and steps being taken to formally recognise
the Tamils as a distinct Nation and its inalienable right to self-determination, will only further
alienate the Tamil people from prospects of achieving accountability and a just political
solution that upholds their rights under international law.
3
The present National People’s Power (NPP) government has rejected the previous resolutions
as intrusive and politically motivated and have insisted that only domestic mechanisms will be
considered. However the current president since at least the 27th of August 2024 has
repeadedly assured the Sinhala people that no one will be punished for IHL or Human Rights
law violations that took place during the war and that any mechanism that will be established
will only serve the purpose of finding out the “truth” but not for accountability purposes. In this
context it becomes abundantly clear that the present government, like its predecessors, will
never willingly prosecute perpetrators, which is what all Tamil victims have been insisting on,
and which is fundamental in ensuring non recurrence.
Given this extremely worrisome backdrop, we hope that you pay attention to the positions
articulated in this letter and our previous letters. We wish to reiterate that a resolution along the
lines of previous resolutions cannot be sustained in the name of accountability and justice for
victims whom we represent. A new resolution consistent with the matters pointed out in this
letter and specifically, a referral of the situation in Sri Lanka to the ICC, and other international
fora, is fundamental if the resolution is to have the consent of the Tamil victims.
Mapomemble
G. G. PONNAMBALAM M.P.
S. KAJENDREN
President, Tamil National People’s Front &
General Secretary, Tamil National People’s Front.
All Ceylon Tamil Congress
Contact: +94777301021
Contact: +94773024316