20 July 2020 03:32 am Views - 2872
An open letter by Sri Lanka Study Circle to Ms Alaina Teplitz of the US Embassy
We, the members of the Sri Lanka Study Circle in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement – the largest organised grouping of Nations after the UN – that initiated a UN General Assembly Resolution in 1971 which was unanimously adopted by the entire World to make forever the Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace within which area no Nuclear weapons whatsoever would be permitted, are perturbed by your insensitive and hypocritical attitude in not providing the Sri Lankan people official Sinhala and Tamil translations of the draft MCC Conditional-Contract made out in English which too was made public only a few months ago while you took time and effort to have your propaganda material on the MCC Conditional-Contract translated into Sinhala and Tamil.
"When Agreements such as these, are signed or are being prepared to be signed behind the backs of the People and their Representatives, you are working against the very norms of civilized behaviour laid out clearly in the Vienna Convention on
International Treaties"
This matter is of grave importance to the people of this country, about a 98 per cent of whom do not have an intricate knowledge of the English Language – and that includes parliamentarians – to read, understand and give an independent opinion on an issue that affects the very Sovereignty and future of the country, her people and the unborn generations of Sri Lankans whose Fundamental Rights will be adversely affected.
When Agreements such as these, are signed or are being prepared to be signed behind the backs of the People and their Representatives, you are working against the very norms of civilized behaviour laid out clearly in the Vienna Convention on International Treaties.
We, the members of the Sri Lanka Study Circle, demand that you make available immediately to the people of Sri Lanka the official Sinhala and Tamil translations of the draft MCC Conditional-Contract and in the same measure make available to the people the originals and translations of the SOFA and ACSA.
We demand that you do so immediately, before the General Elections, because the people can then study these Agreements and the election results will reflect in no uncertain terms what the people think of these ‘Agreements’ and the motives of the Americans.