Hope India seeks amendments to UN resolution on Sri Lanka

New York: New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has in a statement urged the Indian Government to seek and move amendments to the UN Human Rights Council Resolution on the Sri Lankan Tamil rights issue at the earliest. In a statement issued, Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW`s South Asia Director, said: Over the past year the Sri Lankan government has alternated between threatening activists who seek justice and making small, cynical gestures to keep the international community at bay." "It is good that the DMK wants a strong resolution at the (UN) Human Rights Council and we hope that India will seek amendments to the draft to authorize an independent, international investigation into the estimated 40,000 civilian deaths at the conflict`s end. The HRW statement was issued even as the DMK, a regional political party, opted to withdraw support to the ruling UPA-II Government at the Centre over the latter`s reluctance to put more pressure on the United Nations, the United States and the UN Human Rights Council to change the resolution sufficiently enough to make the Government of Sri Lanka more accountable for alleged war crimes committed against Sri Lankan Tamils at the height of the over two-decade-old civil war that ended in May 2009. For over 25 years, this civil war caused significant hardships for the population, environment and the economy of the country, with an estimated 80,000-100,000 people killed during its course. DMK spokesperson T K S Elangovan said that the DMK has been freed of coalition dharma and that "there is no window for reconsideration of the party`s decision to withdraw support to the Central Government. He said that the five DMK ministers will submit their resignations to the Prime Minister today. (ANI)