Vote over, now get on with reforms: SL activists

The director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu has welcomed the passage of the US sponsored resolution calling on Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of a government commission to promote reconciliation. Speaking to Firstpost shortly after the vote was adopted in Geneva, Dr Saravanamuttu said that hopefully now that the vote was over, the country could “get on with the job” of implementing the recommendations of the LLRC. “I hope the government will not waste time looking for scapegoats, as we have more important things to do”, he said. [caption id=“attachment_252956” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Saravanamuttu says the govt should just get on with the job: Reuters”]  [/caption] The Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission of Sri Lanka is a government mechanism that was appointed to look at the grievances of Tamil civilians in the immediate aftermath of the war. According to the commission civilians were killed by the Sri Lankan military, albeit accidentally, which contradicting the government’s line that there were zero civilian casualties. Its recommendations included calling for investigations to be carried out into specific allegations of disappearances after surrender/arrest, adding that where such investigations produce evidence of any unlawful act on the part of individual members of the Army, the wrongdoers should be prosecuted and punished. Other recommendations included the appointment of an independent panel to look into the Channel four documentary which was one of the factors that finally pushed India to vote in favor of the resolution. ( Read more here) Dr. Saravanamuttu said that the resolution was in fact, extremely favorable for Sri Lanka and he did not buy the Sri Lankan governments argument that the UN resolution was a divisive piece of legislation that would impede reconciliation. The Sri Lankan government went all out against the resolution, going so far as to send a monster 52-member delegation to Geneva to lobby against its passage. The final tally of the vote saw 24 countries vote in favor of the resolution, 15 vote against and 18 abstain.