The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will leave no stone unturned to provide evidence against the government, if an international war crimes probe is held against it by the international community.
” This is a very serious situation and it is up to the representatives of the war affected people of the North and the East to provide evidence against the government in the event of a war crimes probe being held at international level,” TNA spokesman and Jaffna District MP Suresh Premachandran told Ceylon Today last night.
He also asserted that it was up to the people of these affected districts to provide the evidence, and if they were intimidated, the TNA as a political party would go all out to provide the evidence and fully support such a war crimes probe.
However, when pointed out that the government had rejected the need for such a probe and also that a group of government MPs had made written representations to Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa rejecting the need for such an international probe, Premachandran said that the TNA and the victims would provide the evidence even at a location outside Sri Lanka, irrespective of what it takes.
He also said that it was also in the best interest of the government to support such a probe to clear its name, and also in the interests of the people who were the victims, whether they were Tamils or Sinhalese or whatever ethnic denomination they belonged to.
Meanwhile, Government spokesman and Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, when contacted last night, vociferously rejected the war crimes allegations, claiming that they were made against Sri Lanka by the international community and were unilateral, flawed, baseless and malicious.
Rambukwella also referred to the address that External Affairs Minister Professor G.L. Peiris made to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, spelling out that the allegations were totally biased and the countries which voted for the motion, were ones which had political interests.
” The fact that 14 countries voted against the motion and 12 abstained, speaks volumes of the biases and the flaws in the entire Geneva resolution, he asserted.
That was the basis on which even President Mahinda Rajapaksa also rejected the allegations and said that he would not allow any such probe against Sri Lanka and that was why a group of MPs also sent a motion against such an inquiry to Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa, he said.
Ravi Ladduwahet
Ceylon Today