University dons condemn western nations interference in SL domestic affairs

While criticizing the interference of countries in the domestic affairs of Sri Lanka, National University Teachers’ Association (NUTA) said those particular western countries maintained dead silence when the former UNP – led regime deprived the people of their right to elect members into the local bodies, the provincial councils, etc.

The NUTA, in its statement said, these countries maintained absolute passivity when all other accepted principles of participatory democracy, good governance, financial transparency, and parliamentary ethics were blatantly violated by the sacked Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues.

President Maithripala Sirisena replaced Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe with Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister (PM) of Sri Lanka, under a constitutional prerogative conferred on him as the President, the Head of the State and the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers of Sri Lanka.

“The removal of an incumbent PM and the appointment of a new PM are purely domestic matters. The United Nations Charter (UN) vividly declares that in international law every state has an international legal personality, a prerogative attributed to all sovereign states, and every sovereign state possesses the same legal rights as any other sovereign state irrespective of the size of landmass, population, economic opulence, etc.

Moreover, the UN Charter unreservedly declares that no state has any right of whatsoever nature to interfere with the domestic affairs of another state. In addition, myriads of international treaties have emphatically proclaimed in international law, the principle of “noninterference into domestic affairs” as an inviolable and sacrosanct principle. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is one such international treaty that proclaims unreservedly that no diplomatic mission has any power or right to interfere into the domestic affairs of any country, and its article 9 specifically provides for such diplomatic officials to be declared persona non grata and denied any diplomatic privileges.

In this context, NUTA would like to point out that those attempts in the nature of threats to a sovereign state must be stopped forthwith. As a significant fraction of the intellectual community of Sri Lanka, we are confident that Sri Lanka possesses the required legal and constitutional mechanisms and possesses all the moral stamina and strength to face this situation, and we vehemently oppose and roundly condemn any kind of interference by any country in the domestic affairs of Sri Lanka,” the NUTA said.