NJC critical on SL govt’s poor response on UK sanctions

The National Joint Committee (NJC) has criticised the “mild and weak response” of the Foreign Ministry to the decision by the UK government to impose sanctions on four persons, three of whom are former commanders of the Sri Lankan armed forces, for alleged human rights violations and abuses during the country’s armed conflict.

Issuing a statement, the NJC states that what the Foreign Ministry should have done was to inform the UK government that there was no civil war in Sri Lanka and that the country had a non–international armed conflict for over three decades in which the armed forces of the government had a confrontation with the LTTE, an armed terrorist organization. “The Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka should have also informed the United Kingdom government that the aim of the LTTE for three decades was to divide the country and establish a separate state of Eelam by overthrowing governments that the people elected democratically to rule the country and that the LTTE was finally defeated by the government armed forces of Sri Lanka in 2009,” it added.

The NJC statement, issued by its Co-President Lt Col. Anil Amarasekera (Retd)., further claimed that the government that won the conflict against LTTE terrorists as well as all the other elected governments subsequently failed to inform the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) and the international community adequately regarding this non-international armed conflict in which LTTE terrorists were even recruiting child soldiers. It added that the UK government has up to date failed to take effective action against Adela Balasingham, who was responsible for training child soldiers.