Sri Lanka: Pandor’s misguided intentions
THE Solidarity Group for Peace and Justice (SGPJ) in Sri Lanka condemns the invitation extended by Naledi Pandor, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco), to officials from the government of Sri Lanka.
The intention of the visit was to assist Sri Lanka develop a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) model.
The invitation was extended to Ali Sabry, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Minister of Justice, Prison Affairs and Constitutional Reforms.
The audacity of the Sri Lankan and South African governments’ assumption that a TRC model where the perpetrator oversees setting up the commission is preposterous.
Sabry is a close ally of former presidents Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, both of whom are accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and the genocide of Tamils during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka’s rush to apply a TRC model to resolve decades of oppression of the Tamil, Muslim, and Christian people is another ruse to elude the international community, especially when the forthcoming UNHRC sessions are reaching a crucial state regarding the recommendation for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide of Tamil people laid against those responsible during the final stages of the war.
If any TRC model is applied, it will enable Sri Lanka to continue its gross human rights violations with impunity. The SGPJ has engaged the South African High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, Sandile Schalk, for the past year. He agreed with the SGPJ that a TRC model was not applicable in the case of Sri Lanka.
The following reasons were expanded on:
The majority Sinhalese have not accepted their wrongdoing.
The infliction of oppression on Tamil, Muslim, and Christian people continues.
High military concentration in oppressed homelands. Schalk’s sudden U-turn is baffling. Clearly, the Sri Lankan government is under tremendous pressure from the International Monetary Fund and foreign investors to resolve its multiethnic conflict and this hoax is merely to hoodwink the international community and create some leverage before the UNHRC pronounces on Sri Lanka’s failures of Resolutions it sponsored.
The SGPJ calls upon Pandor to offer an unreserved apology to the marginalised Tamils, Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka and to the various stakeholders in South Africa and the diaspora who have worked closely with Dirco for more than a decade, for her misguided intentions.