Per Stig Møller, Chair, Kirsten Brosbøl, Vice-Chair, Ane Halsboe-Larsen, JensJoel, John Dyrby Paulsen, Maja Panduro, Mogens Jensen, Lone Loklindt,Rasmus Helveg Petersen, Sofie Carsten Nielsen, Lisbeth Bech Poulsen, SteenGade, Christian Juhl, Nikolaj Villumsen, Frank Aaen, Lykke Friis, JakobEllemann-Jensen, Karen Jespersen, Karsten Lauritzen, Ellen Trane Nørby,Søren Pind, Mads Rørvig, Ulla Tørnæs, Søren Espersen, Hans KristianSkibby, Pia Kjærsgaard, Peter Skaarup, Mette Bock, Mmbers, Foreign AffairsCommitteDear parliamentarians‘Salt on Old Wounds: The Systematic Sinhalization of Sri Lanka’s North, Eastand Hill Country’, The Social Architects, 20 March 2012Women for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka wish to thank Denmark(currentPresidency-holder) and all other EU countries for their ardent support to get aresolution passed on Sri Lanka which has been dragging its feet too long ingranting justice to a section of its own people. While the attention of the worldhas been on the failure of Sri Lanka to address this issue, its army and itsadministration has been engaged in continuing and even escalating theoppression of the people in the Northeast - unless this is urgently addressed,its reversal may be too difficult.Please let us bring the following to your very urgent attention:1.i.

''This paper will show that the concept of Sinhalization extends

well beyond the subjects of strategic state-planned settlements, land,

military intrusion, boundary changes and the renaming of villages.

Sinhalization has made its way into Tamil cultural events, religious

life, economic activity, public sector recruitment and even the Sri

Lankan education system'' - ‘Salt on Old Wounds: The Systematic

Sinhalization of Sri Lanka’s North, East and Hill Country’,

20 March2012,http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2012/03/20/salt-on-old-wounds-post-war-sri-lanka/?fb_ref=.T2ihTCH4Ew4.like&fb_source=home_multiline

ii.Plight of the people more important, V. Anandasangaree, 11 March

2012,

http://transcurrents.com/news-views/archives/9322

Leader

of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), V. Anandasangaree saidthe need of the hour was to address the needs of the people who had sufferedduring the war and after resettlement. Anandasangaree who was in Mullaithivulast week canvassing for the upcoming local government polls, said that theresettled people continued to live amidst hardship. ...''

iii.''But that truth cannot excuse human rights violations that currently afflictthe nation as a whole; or for that matter obscure the looming threat of thecultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhistmajority'' - Biased and Prejudiced Collection on Sri Lanka,*GananathObesekere,Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai, 28 January 2012(*a Sinhalese and Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University)2. i. Sri Lanka’s North I: The Denial of Minority RightsSri Lanka’s North II: Rebuilding under the MilitaryAsia Reports N�219 and N�220, 16 March 2012 -http://www.crisisgroup.org/ii.No war, no peace: the denial of minority rights and justice in Sri Lanka,Report by Minority Rights Group International, 19 January 2011 -http://www.minorityrights.org/10458/reports/no-war-no-peace-the-denial-of-minority-rights-and-justice-in-sri-lanka.html

3. ''Let us not close our eyes to the vast human rights abuses that continue tooccur in Sri Lanka just as many average Germans did when they pretended theHolocaust never happened. ... What the President did do immediately after thelast election was to change the constitution so that he could be President forlife and the critical civilian posts such as that of the head of the police, theelections commissioner, etc, would be decided by the President as opposed toan independent body as the Sri Lankan Constitution had mandated till then.....'' - Ruling Rajapaksa dynasty must be held accountable for the atrocitiesthey are responsible for, *Viresh Fernando, 19 March 2012, An Open Letter toFellow Sinhala, Canadians, http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/4813(*As Counsel with the Attorney General of Canada he was assigned to work onthe first Nazi war crime investigation undertaken by Canada. As an advisor to a

4. ''The two major concerns regarding international sanctions due to the warcrimes issue and mass disaffection on the lines of the Arab Spring, can beovercome - this calls for appropriate and genuine actions by the government toimplement the LLRC recommendations'' - National Peace Council of SriLanka(NPC), 20 February 2012''The political issue that can block Sri Lanka’s economic take-off is theunresolved ethnic conflict'' - NPC, 6 December 2011'’One of the most disappointing features of the present is the absence of aclear break with the country’s violent past. .... The absence of checks andbalances, and the perception that even the judiciary is unable to hold itsground, is detrimental to the long term stability of the country’’ - NPC, 28November 2011''When the war ended in May 2009, it was the worst that was over, but theethnic conflict that spans more than five decades is not yet over'' - NPC, 14November 20115. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/19/NGO/64&Lang=EHuman rights situations that require the Council’s attention:A/HRC/19/NGO/64, 13 February 2012:

Sri Lanka: Land grabbing and development-induced displacement:

''The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), inassociation with three Sri Lankan non-governmental organisations, draws theattention of the United Nations Human Rights Council to the alarming trendviolations of the rights to adequate housing, land and property in post-war SriLanka. ....’’

Bassie Head said that she was building a stairway to the stars because she hadthe authority (=lovable audacity) to take the whole of mankind up to the starswith her- mentioned by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her CommonwealthLecture 2012.If Prince Harry celebrates the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in someCommonwealth countries, certainly the Commonwealth members have a dutyto TRY to resolve protracted conflicts in other Commonwealth countries. It is agreat injustice to the oppressed when CMAG(Sept 2011) and CHOGM 2011refused to endorse those recommendations on Human Rights out of thehundred or so recommendations of Eminent Persons Group to improve theCommonwealth.Please hurry - a nation is in its last throes of life:In the forward to the book, CEYLON : A DIVIDED NATION(1963),Viscount Soulbury (Commission headed by him was in charge of handing overindependence) expressed his regret: ‘’In the light of later happenings I nowthink it is a pity that the Commission did not also recommend theentrenchment in the constitution of guarantees of fundamental rights, on thelines enacted in the constitutions of India, Pakistan, Malaya , Nigeria andelsewhere.Perhaps in any subsequent amendment of Ceylon's constitution those inauthority might take note of the proclamation made by the delegates at theArfrican conference which met in Lagos two years ago: 'Fundamental humanrights, esp. the right to individual liberty, should be written and entrenched inthe constitutions ofall countries'.