No judges or prosecutors to deal with war crimes – Wigneswaran

The Northern Province’s Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran said Sri Lanka does not have judges or prosecutors to deal with war crimes cases.

Speaking after the release of the UN’s report calling for a hybrid mechanism with international judges, Mr Wigneswaran, a former supreme court judge himself, said there was no judge in Sri Lanka who would find fault with the military.

The chief minister welcomed the OHCHR report and said he was happy it called for international participation.

Mr Wigneswaran also welcomed the resolution passed in Tamil Nadu’s assembly, which called for an international inquiry.

“We thank Selvi Jayalalithaa for the extreme concern she has shown over our situation. It augurs well for the future. It demonstrates a sense of togetherness that exists between Tamils all over the world,

“The resolution of the Tamil Nadu assembly is on the lines of the resolution the Northern Provincial Council passed earlier this month,” he said.

Meanwhile, speaking at the inauguration of the first Jaffna International Film Festival, Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran said:

“The cinematic art could be used to bring communities together or to divide and destroy communities. “The Tamil community has been discriminated against continuously since Independence. I was fortunate enough to have lived during my early childhood in many parts of this Country as a citizen of the Great British Empire which ruled us then before independence. My early education was in Kurunegala and Anuradhapura before I joined Royal Primary in Colombo. My father was also stationed in Kandy and Tangalle as a Government Officer. As an original Court Judge later I had functioned in different parts of this Country. The significant thing I have noticed is that the camaraderie, the good will and wellbeing, the brotherly and humane relationship that existed prior to independence in this country is lacking now. Tamil speaking people who used to live and own lands and do businesses in many parts of the South had been driven out from their residences by pogroms and riots,

“Since Independence they have been relegated more or less within discernible areas by discriminatory laws and diabolical violence. In other words a community that occupied almost every nook and corner of this country during my childhood peacefully doing their work as government employees or as traders or as cultivators of lands have been driven out from the rest of the Country and are now being driven out from their traditional homelands too. Hundreds of thousands of people who were citizens of this beautiful country have become citizens of alien countries simply because they or their predecessors were violently driven away. The cinematic art must be able to enlighten our youth and others of the inhuman activities that have taken this country on a wrong path.

“The total understanding of our past would help us to mend our future. Truth must precede reconciliation. Let us be courageous enough to accept our past, accept our mistakes and mend fences to take us on an enlightened humane path in the future,”