Withdraw Sri Lanka from co-sponsoring UNHRC Resolution 30/1: NJC tells Govt.

The National Joint Committee (NJC) is requesting the Government to withdraw Sri Lanka from co- sponsoring United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolution 30/1 at the upcoming UNHRC sessions in Geneva.

Issuing a statement signed by its Co-President Lt Col (Rtd) Anil Amarasekera, the NJC stresses that the Government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa should withdraw from the co- sponsorship since it brought disrepute to the country’s armed forces.

The organisation noted that UNHRC Resolution 30/1 was co- sponsored by the Sri Lankan delegation headed by then Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on October 1, 2015 in Geneva. Though President Maithripala Sirisena, then Head of State, repeatedly disassociated himself from the resolution, he “conveniently refrained from taking remedial measures even after the United States of

America left the UNHRC accusing it of being a cesspool of political bias,” the NJC alleged.

“The people in most parts of the country, except the North and East, overwhelmingly voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Election and he won with a majority of 1.3 million votes. This victory has given the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government an opportunity to place all the available credible facts, not only before the North and East Tamil electorate, but also before Geneva to disprove the primary war crimes allegation by UNSG Panel of Experts (PoE) that 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed as a result of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government deliberately targeting that community,” the statement further stressed.

The NJC said under such circumstances, the majority of the country expected the Government to withdraw Sri Lanka from its co- sponsorship of Resolution 30/1 at the next UNHRC sessions.