The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will be sending a lawyers’ team to the coming session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, The New Indian Express said. The team will be lef by Jaffna District MP M.A. Sumanthiran.

“A TNA delegation, as such, might be sent after reading the High Commissioner’s report and the Sri Lankan government’s response to it. The task of Sumanthiran and his team of lawyers will be to examine the High Commissioner’s report and the Lankan government’s reply, and chalk out a line on which the TNA leadership will base its final decision,” ITAK leader and Jaffna District MP Mavai Senathirajah said.

Meanwhile, speaking to the media on Friday, TNA’s chief, R.Sampanthan, said that party’s stand on the UNHRC’s proceedings on Lanka will be based on the Tamils’ sentiments as well as the views of the International Community.

“While we have to go by the peoples’ sentiments, we cannot alienate the international community,” he said.

There is an overwhelming demand from the Tamils that the TNA should reject the US-Lankan agreement to substitute the international investigation by a domestic probe. M.K.Shivajilingam, a TNA member of the Northern Provincial Council is currently leading a march from Kilinochchi to Jaffna seeking an international probe and an international judicial mechanism for the trial of the accused.

But the TNA’s leadership feels diffident about alienating the US and the Western world which also dominate the UNHRC.

(With inputs from The New Indian Express)