THE NAB CHRISTMAS PULLOUT: CHRISTMAS QUIZ - AU CHRISTMAS CAROL - SOCIETIES
Beaver Issue 822 | 09.12.14
the
newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union
Motion to Condemn Sri Lanka Passed at Rare UGM Liam Hill Features Editor THE FIRST UNION GENERAL Meeting (UGM) since week 2 took place on Thursday 5th December. The Meeting was dominated by the debate of a motion, proposed by Harish Karunalingam and seconded by Hari Prabu, which posed the question “Should LSESU condemn Sri Lanka and support sanctions against the government for violations of human rights?” The motion was opposed by Dinesh Perera. Harish Karunalingam, LSESU Tamil Society Campaigns Officer, alleged the culpability of the Sri Lankan government for the deaths of 40,000 Tamils in northern Sri Lanka in 2009, the year that the Sri Lankan government defeated the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), a rebel nationalist group whose aim was to create an independent state in northern Sri Lanka. The LTTE remains regarded as a terrorist group by the USA, the UK, the EU and by India. Karunalingam went on to call the Sri Lankan government’s actions “an affront to our core values”. Hari Prabu, President of LSESU Liberal Democrats and LSESU Tamil Society Tamil Student’s Initiative (TSI) Representative, said that “for five years, not enough has been done... there has not been the same amount of outrage” and protested that “40,000 civilians are not collateral damage.”
Dinesh Perera, opposing the motion, turned the focus of the debate toward the nature and the actions of the LTTE, calling the organisation “evil” and saying that “it had to be defeated militarily,” adding that the defeat of the LTTE is the “greatest achievement of the Sri Lankan government.” Unusually for a UGM, where typically speakers take turns to respond to each others points, Prabu and Perera shared the stage, answering each others points in turn. This forum made for a back-andforth discussion that was praised afterwards by some of those in attendance, including Nona BuckleyIrvine, who tweeted that it “had been “one of the most interesting UGMs we have ever had.” The motion was then passed by an overwhelming majority by LSE students who voted, by a margin of 298 votes to 15, with 19 students registering a vote for ‘Undecided’. Afterwards, Prabu told The Beaver “It means a great deal to me, as I’m sure it does to every Tamil at LSE, to see our Union taking such a strong stance against the abuses committed by Sri Lanka when much of the world has stayed silent for too long. “The passing of this motion will hopefully encourage many other student unions to take such a position themselves. I hope that such collective voice will persuade the U.K. government to put pressure on Sri Lanka to ensure that UNCHR inquiry, finally mandated this year, proceeds in an independent
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L to R: Nona Buckley-Irvine, John Sweeney, Prof Paul Kelly, Prof Craig Calhoun, Andrew Farrell. Cartoon by Jack Hodsoll
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