MANNAR, Sri Lanka (AlertNet) - Wearing a visor and a protective vest over grey fatigues tucked into black military boots, former housewife S. Dishanty crawls on her hands and knees through dense bush, slowly inching forward and methodically scanning the ground.
A year ago, this 23-year-old Sri Lankan woman was looking after her elderly parents and young son in their war-devastated village. Nowadays, she searches for an instrument of that destruction: landmines. Full story>>>
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The Canadian Tamil Congress appreciates the recent movements made by Canada in the past few days
For Immediate Release
September 23, 2011
September 23, 2011
The United Nations Human Rights Council opened its 18th regular session on September 12th, 2011 in Geneva. The Canadian Tamil Congress welcomes the recent actions by His Excellency, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, on the issues of accountability in the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. The Panel of Expert’s report, which advised the Secretary General on issues of accountability, was released to the public in late April of this year, and found “credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law was committed both by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE – some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” At that time, the Secretary General suggested that he lacked the authority to establish an independent international accountability mechanism and maintained that another UN body like the Security Council or the Human Rights Council would have to authorize such an establishment. Full Story>>>
