TGTE Condoles death of former UN Secretary Genenal Kofi Annan

“Sri Lanka prevented Kofi Annan from engaging with LTTE on reconstruction and also visiting the tsunami-ravaged Tamil areas and meeting with Tamil victims”

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, August 22, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ —

The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) is saddened by the demise of Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, Nobel peace laureate, architect of the UN’s millennium development goals, and who provided the rationale for the international community to protect populations subjected to human rights violations by dictatorial regimes.

Following the 2004 Asian tsunami, Kofi Annan was supposed to visit the affected areas and discuss with the Sri Lankan government rehabilitation and reconstruction work in southern part of the country and with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) about the reconstruction rehabilitation work in the Northeast of Sri Lanka.

The then President of Sri Lanka Chandrika Kumaratunga not only prevented the Secretary General from engaging with the LTTE on reconstruction, but also prevented the Secretary General from visiting the tsunami-ravaged Tamil areas and meeting with Tamil victims.

Kofi Annan firmly believes that the UN’s vital role is to protect and promote human rights. “The UN is supposed to protect the people, not just states” he said in his autobiography, “Intervention: A Life in War and Peace”. He believed that the states are vehicles for individuals to realize their human rights and championed for accountability.

In the face of a lack of political will of the international community to prevent the Rwanda genocide and the Srebrenica massacre, Kofi Annan asked tough questions. “If humanitarian intervention is indeed, an unacceptable affront on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica, to gross and systematic violation of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?” The above question led to the evolution of the norm called Responsibility to Protect. (R2P), that was implemented in the case of the UN mandating protection for Kosovo from attack by the Serbian government.

The people of Tamil Eelam will remember Kofi Annan fondly for his great efforts on part the oppressed people of the world, for championing the cause of humanitarian values and for bravely standing up to dictatorial governments everywhere around the world.