Human rights violations have been so serious in recent times that International Human Rights Commission, America’s Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other organizations have expressed concern and even condemned them.

UN Human Rights High Commissioner has stated that a necessity has arisen to open a regional office to monitor human rights in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile Rathakrishnan , a Deputy Minister in the Sri Lankan government has repeatedly released details of human rights violations in the country. Colombo Civil Monitoring Committee has also released statistics about such violations.

Yet, Minister Priyatharsha Yapa , Government Spokesman, has denied the allegations of human rights violations. He has explained that there might be certain incidents and that they could be due to personal revenge, personal animosity and so on.

The UNP, a major opposition in the country, has expressed grave concern over the increasing human rights violations in the country. It is reported that UNP is preparing a report on the human rights violations in the country and to highlight them in the eyes of the international community.

UNP leader Ranil Wicremasinghe is to take the lead in this campaign to internationalize the human rights violations. This is certainly laudable and a constructive effort of a responsible opposition party. It is appropriate at this juncture to point out certain issues to the Leader of the Opposition.

What is happening today are not merely human rights violations as they appear to be. They are not merely some criminal activities. There is something beyond the ambit of human rights violations or criminal offenses.

If one observers the trend of the human rights violations, one can notice that there is a cruel design which is terrorism in nature. There appears to be a network operating behind these human rights violations.

Another feature is that the offenders are not brought to book. Observers are of the view that there is an unseen hand behind the episode in not only committing the offenses but also in bringing them to book. It appears that there is complicity by the authorities. As a result, this has to be identified as state terrorism and the Opposition Leader Ranil Wicremasinghe is well aware of this fact.

Will the UNP and its leader come forward to identify it and expose state terrorism? Or do they want to call it merely as human rights violations with an eye on the vote bank in the south?

An English translation of the Editorial in Sudar Oli, a Tamil daily, based in Colombo.

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