TNA will not accept an internal inquiry

Speaking at the Jaffna Press Club (JPC), Mr Suresh Premachandran said the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will not accept an internal inquiry following the publishing of the UN report examining atrocities in Sri Lanka,  at a press briefing on Monday 27 July.

“They Government said that once the UN report is released, it will give its response after reading the report or we will arrange to have an internal investigation. We want to say something very clearly. The UN report must be released and we expect it to be released in September.”

“We expect that the UN report following the investigation, will include issues such as who is responsible for war crimes, what were the reasons and also issues relating to human rights violations.”

Calling the UN investigation to take the process forward to the next stage, Mr Premachandran said, “This must either be a referred to the International Criminal Court, or the creation of a tribunal to investigation the crimes that took place in Sri Lanka. We call for the international community and the UN to work towards this.”

“Certainly if this report is going to lead to another internal inquiry, not only will the Tamil National Alliance not accept this, but there will be no use from it.”

Continuing his address he said White van abductions, which became notorious under the former Rajapaksa government, are once again on the rise in Colombo. Premachandran said that “many hundreds of Tamil youths have been abducted by white vans, and even today there has been no explanation as to where they are. Hundreds of mothers are still striving to search for their children who were abducted by the white vans and wives are searching for their husbands.”