Sri Lanka summons Canada’s ambassador after Ottawa sanctions top officials – National | 24CA News
Sri Lanka has summoned Canada’s envoy over Ottawa’s resolution to sanction 4 high-ranking officers for alleged human-rights breaches.
That nation’s authorities is accusing Ottawa of caving to Tamil diaspora politics in sanctioning two former presidents and two navy officers.
The resolution “sets a dangerous precedent,” the South Asian state’s foreign-affairs ministry mentioned in a Tuesday news launch.
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Ottawa introduced Monday that it was barring two former presidents from entry to Canada — Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned final July, and his older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The pair had been in energy when Sri Lanka’s military defeated Tamil separatists who had waged a bloody, 26-year civil warfare with the nation’s majority Sinhalese inhabitants.
Gotabaya briefly fled his nation final summer season amid mass protests over residing prices, whereas Mahinda resigned from his put up as prime minister final spring.
Ottawa additionally sanctioned two senior navy officers.
One is Sunil Ratnayake, whom a courtroom sentenced to demise for his position in a bloodbath of Tamils in 2000, solely to be pardoned by Gotabaya. The different is navy commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi, who has been accused of abducting civilians who had been later killed.
In addition to the entry ban, the 4 can now not make monetary dealings inside Canada. The announcement gained substantial media consideration in South Asia.
Sri Lanka Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry summoned the Canadian Acting High Commissioner Daniel Bood over the transfer Tuesday and urged Ottawa to “review the decision.”
Sabry mentioned in a press release that the sanctions had been primarily based on “unsubstantiated allegations” and “domestic political compulsions” and will hinder postwar reconciliation inside the nation.
He mentioned the transfer “sets a dangerous precedent and is inimical to Sri Lanka’s interest” because it tries to work with elected Tamil representatives on a devolution and peace plan.
Sabry’s ministry went on that the choice leaves democratically elected leaders “vulnerable to arbitrary, external decisions” that aren’t primarily based on due course of.
Haiti’s former prime minister Laurent Lamothe made the identical argument in a December courtroom submitting, contesting Canadian sanctions that Ottawa primarily based on his alleged assist for violent gangs.
The workplace of Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly argued all 4 of the Sri Lankan officers being sanctioned are chargeable for “the senseless loss of human lives,” and mentioned Canadian officers use a radical course of to guage who deserves sanctioning.
“Victims and survivors of gross human-rights violations deserve justice,” spokesman Adrien Blanchard mentioned in a press release.
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“We are sending a clear message that those who have committed gross human-rights violations in Sri Lanka must answer for the suffering they have caused.”
Sri Lanka’s present president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, took workplace final July after financial turmoil that led to an increase in youngster malnutrition and a scarcity of medical gear.
Last month, Wickremesinghe mentioned his nation has “undergone the bleakest of times, immense hardships” as a result of final 12 months’s “abject economic collapse.”
Sri Lanka’s overseas ministry mentioned it was poor timing for Ottawa to implement the sanctions, and argued the transfer “was in contravention of established diplomatic practice, disregarding existing channels of regular bilateral interaction.”
It mentioned that Canada has a job to play as peacemaker, given its personal giant inhabitants with Tamil roots.
Yet Joly’s workplace doubled down Tuesday, suggesting the nation isn’t doing sufficient.
“We continue to call on Sri Lanka to take concrete actions to uphold its human-rights obligations and to establish a meaningful accountability process,” Blanchard mentioned.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
