Former People’s Alliance lawmaker M. M. Zuhair, PC, said Western powers will use an invitation to investigate the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks to pursue issues of wartime accountability. The following is the text of the statement issued by the former public prosecutor just after the conclusion of the 51st session of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council: the Easter Sunday attacks of 21/4/2019 will start soon.
This time, it looks like investigators from pro-Western countries such as the US FBI, Scotland Yard in the UK, the Australian Federal Police and the Maldivian National Police are being called upon to do what the Sri Lankan police might not be able to. be not do. So the question that will arise is, why not similarly endorse the UN Human Rights Council (UN HRC), subject to negotiated terms to investigate alleged human rights abuses? in Sri Lanka. With 22 million super rich excluding tax exemption, suffering the obsessive consequences of the bankruptcy which is suffocating the country, we must avoid confronting the UN! If the position of the Sri Lankan state is that there are no serious human rights violations in the country, why resist an external investigation, similar to the proposed new foreign investigation? If it is state policy not to allow investigations by foreign police, why the hell do we need another Easter investigation by foreign investigators from countries hostile to Sri Lanka at UNHCR?
There is nothing stopping the US FBI and UK M16, if and when they investigate the Easter attacks again, from investigating the vast number of embedded human rights abuses, including including confessions allegedly coerced under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act. With over 2,000 mostly poor people from a single minority community having been detained by the state, enough and more material of rights abuses can be officially presented to the powerful governments that are on the front line to confront Sri Lanka in the United Nations HRC! These can explode at the United Nations HRC!
There are, of course, legal obstacles to allowing foreigners from certain countries to investigate the Easter attacks, but there are no constitutional obstacles to cooperation with the UN in investigating the ever-increasing number of alleged violations of human rights in the country. Cooperation with the United Nations system with which we have signed many binding treaties will help overcome some of the accusations as well as the severe food insecurity and difficult economic situation facing its 22 million people. Conversely, by confronting the UN system, we as a country will face multiple acts of marginalization by the community of nations, which could extend to real sanctions against Sri Lankans responsible for economic crimes, cabinet members, civil servants, prosecutors and even judges who do not respect human rights!
The signs are very clear. Support for Sri Lanka when it cooperated in 2009 was 29 out of 47 UN HRC member countries, which when Sri Lankan state officials refused to cooperate, fell further to 15 in 2012 at 7 in 2022! Major Muslim-majority nations that backed Sri Lanka earlier refrained from backing this time, despite a Muslim minister heading the Sri Lankan delegation. Clearly, something serious is going on.
Next time, Muslim-majority nations will most likely vote against Sri Lanka. You probably know very well what is happening in Sri Lanka! This country had received, through Middle Eastern workers’ remittances, US$7 billion every year until 2020, when we clung to a fixed dollar conversion rate and pushed the Sri Lanka’s largest currency purveyor to the black market, unforgivably ruining our dollar income! Meanwhile, fuel-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar had found their feet trampled here for no legitimate reason! This is what a former president told the media recently. Strategic blunders were made without any apologies or excuses.
The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, hinting at the proposed international inquiry, told Udugampola last week that leaders can no longer deceive the people with false promises regarding the Easter Sunday inquiries. “By politicizing law enforcement and the Ministry of the Attorney General and not allowing them to operate independently, and then seeking help from international bodies, this was just another ruse by the government. ” —’Island’ 10/10/2022.
In any event, the Archbishop can never agree to a Western team investigating 4/21, fearing the real possibility that some of those charged by the Presidential Commission on the Easter Bombings will be cleared! But more so, in the context of the Archbishop’s widely publicized speech in Katuwapitiya on July 21, 2019, where he declared that “the Easter Sunday chaos was an international conspiracy and not just the work of Muslim extremists.” He also referred to a report from the time alleging that ISIS leader Al Baghdadi was in a military camp run by the “most powerful nation in the world”. We are now calling on the alleged conspirators to investigate! (For more on the subject; Island 21/06/2021 ‘Perpetrators as preachers and now as illegal investigators!’; Daily Mirror 22/06/2021 titled ‘What is the FBI American and Australian Federal Police to investigate in Sri Lanka? Daily FT 13/06/2020 “The 4/21 attacks are linked to foreign invasions from Muslim countries and ongoing violence against minorities here”.)
We have already had a multiplicity of investigations and inquiries by CID and TID in addition to the local police and with the change of government new investigations have been launched again by CID and CTID weakening the case of the accusation. We also had a select parliamentary commission and a presidential commission of inquiry, whose recommendations were partially implemented in a discriminatory manner, causing publicity in the meantime that was largely detrimental to national reconciliation, tourism and foreign investment. Do we need another survey on Easter Sunday? Why now, when over a hundred suspects remain languishing in state custody for over 3½ years without bail in violation of the presumption of innocence? »
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