2ND LEAD

Gotabaya sets up deceptive COI citing ‘sovereignty’ and ‘non-aligned’ foreign policy

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 January 2021, 08:01 GMT]
Adding to the series of deceit by his predecessors and using the same modus operandi, SL President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has now appointed another domestic Commission of Inquiry (COI) on accountability. The three-member COI, announced through an extraordinary Gazette Notification on Thursday is tasked to find out about the preceding domestic COIs and Committees revelations on “any human rights violations, serious violations of the international humanitarian law and other such serious offences”. Further stating in the gazette that even though Colombo has withdrawn from “co-sponsorship policy”, it would continue to “work with the United Nations and its Agencies to achieve accountability and human resource development for achieving sustainable peace and reconciliation”.

With a lifespan of six months for the said COI, Mr Rajapaksa aims to dilute the UN response in Geneva. This latest in the string of COIs enables genocidal Sri Lanka to avoid accountability by maintaining matters at another reporting stage.



The Gazette notification comes as the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet is set to present her findings at the 46th session (22 February to 19 March 2021) of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The Council is also expected to decide the follow-up action through a new resolution.

The latest Gotabaya manoeuvre poses a test to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the Office of the Human Rights High Commissioner (OHCHR). These bodies so far failed to address justice for Tamils, commented a former militant turned Tamil politician from the mainstream Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

The UN failure to investigate Tamil genocide would push Tamils to the next course of action, which is to challenge the sovereignty of the unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka. The Tamil politician, commenting on the condition of anonymity, reiterated further that the entire notion of ‘Sri Lankan sovereignty’ was illegally imposed on the nation of Eezham Tamils.

Last week, Tamil national political alliances, including the TNA, representatives of the Tamil civil society, and the Tamil religious leaders in the North-East jointly demanded an effective international accountability mechanism to inquire into genocide and the already identified war crimes and crimes against humanity.



By appointing a Muslim, AHMD Nawaz, an SL Supreme Court Judge, as the Chairman of the said COI, Rajapaksa was also attempting to counter the mounting international pressure against his regime on the issue of Covid-19 Forced Cremation of Muslims.

Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had retired from SL military as a Lieutenant Colonel with a twenty years military career (1971-1991), was also a US citizen with command responsibility for genocidal crimes (November 2005 - May 2009) in the SL State’s war against the nation of Eezham Tamils.

Chronology: