{"id":47390,"date":"2015-08-28T00:45:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T07:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=47390"},"modified":"2015-08-28T00:45:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T07:45:44","slug":"sir-desmonds-mandate-was-not-extended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/08\/28\/sir-desmonds-mandate-was-not-extended\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Desmond’s mandate was not extended"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera\u00a0Toronto, Canada<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

August 27, 2015<\/p>\n

His Excellency, Maithripala Sirisena
\nPresident of Sri Lanka<\/p>\n

Copy to:\u00a0 Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Prime Minister
\n”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, Minister of Foreign Affairs
\n”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. P.B. Abeykoon, Mr. Saman Ekanayake and Mrs. Chitranganee Wagiswara<\/p>\n

Your Excellency,<\/p>\n

It is somewhat puzzling to note that the government headed by you has decided not to extend the
\nservices of the renowned experts including Sir Desmond de Silva, QC, retained as advisers to the
\nJustice Paranagama Commission on the subject of ‘Disappearances in Sri Lanka’ and incidents of
\nWar Crimes and violation of International Humanitarian Law by Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces, apparently
\nbased on protests made by leading TNA politicians and certain lobbyists linked to foreign funded
\nNGOO, and the pro-LTTE group funded ‘Sri Lanka campaign for Peace and Justice’ based in London, UK,
\nof which strangely one of the UNSG’s three member Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka,\u00a0 i.e. Yasmin Sooka
\nis a key spokesperson.\u00a0 The timing of the termination of the services of the experts could affect Sri
\nLanka adversely as the whole issue is likely to be taken up at the September 2015 sessions of the UNHRC
\nin Geneva.<\/p>\n

The legal experts who served as advisers are highly reputed legal minds who have even been retained
\nby the UN on similar issues taken up by the ICC.\u00a0 It is our responsibility to provide the best legal defence
\nto safeguard the interests of members of Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces who sacrificed a great deal risking
\ntheir life and limb to eliminate terrorism and usher in an era of peace, after over three decades of murder
\nand mayhem unleashed by the internationally designated terror group known as the LTTE.\u00a0 The charges
\nof war crimes are based on so called ‘Credible Allegations’ claimed by the UNSG’s Panel of Experts, which
\nthey reached on one sided information that they recommended be locked away for the next 20 years.<\/p>\n

Please do not shut the door in receiving proper advice from world renowned legal experts to please those
\nwho were supportive of the LTTE’s goal of carving out a separate state from the sovereign territory of
\nSri Lanka through every means of violence including suicide terrorism.<\/p>\n

Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n

Mahinda Gunasekera
\nToronto, Canada<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Gunasekera\u00a0Toronto, Canada August 27, 2015 His Excellency, Maithripala Sirisena President of Sri Lanka Copy to:\u00a0 Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Prime Minister ”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, Minister of Foreign Affairs ”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. P.B. Abeykoon, Mr. Saman Ekanayake and Mrs. Chitranganee Wagiswara Your Excellency, It is somewhat puzzling to note that the government headed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}