UNHRC, OHCHR belong to failed human rights paradigm, say victims in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 February 2018, 21:18 GMT]
The families of enforced disappeared, who have been waging continuous protests for hundreds of days have again blamed SL President Maithiripala Sirisena, who is also the commander of the armed forces of genocidal Sri Lanka, for repeatedly deceiving them with different explanations each time he met them last year and for his latest claim in Jaffna on Monday that none of the enforced disappeared were in the custody of his forces anywhere in the island. Mr Sirisena was visiting Jaffna for election campaign on Monday. The families of enforced disappeared have been demanding the International Community to trace what had happened to those who were handed over to the SL military in Mullaiththeevu and in Vavuniyaa after the occupying SL military instructed the families of all LTTE members to hand over the surviving at the end of genocidal onslaught in May 2009.

The families said on Tuesday that Mr Sirisena was only engaged in deceiving the victims and the international human rights mechanism because the Sinhala Establishment in the South was confident that the global powers would always be backing those who were in power in Colombo due to the strategic location of the island in the Indian Ocean.

Unfortunately, the human rights mechanism under the UN Human Rights Council is also a subject to political influence by the powers, they said.

The families of enforced disappeared in Jaffna commented that the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (established in 2006) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (functioning since 1993) as belong to the same failing paradigm as that of UNHRC's failed predecessor, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

There was no secret detention of anyone anywhere in the island, the visiting SL President was claiming on Monday in Jaffna.

With this statement, the SL President was admitting that those who were handed over to SL military were subjected to genocidal annihilation, political observers in Jaffna said.

Mr Sirisena, in his earlier meetings with the families of enforced disappeared in 2017, was repeatedly promising action to trace the whereabouts of their family members.

The families were demanding to establish what has happened to each and every one handed over to the SL military in front of them.

The SL President had met the representatives of the families of enforced disappeared three times in 2017.

During the first meeting, the families handed over a 5-point demand to him. One of the demands mentioned some of the alleged locations of secret detentions and the families wanted direct inspection of these locations. Mr Sirisena promised swift action. But, none of the promises were delivered.

Also, on the second meeting he promised quick action to trace the whereabouts and to direct the SL military to come up with the list of names of those who were detained. But, again nothing was delivered.

In the third meeting, he went to the extent of promising the families to allow them visit directly to the alleged locations. But, later he backtracked on the promise and started to cite SL military commanders under him and was claiming there was no secret detentions anywhere.

The families, who have been staging continuous protests in the North and East marked the so-called 70th Independence Day on Sunday as a Black Day.

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