J.S. Tissainayagam, Global Post, April 15, 2012 -CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — The United States sponsored and carried a resolution on Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on March 22. However, what surprised observers was not US action but that India had voted in favor of a resolution against its South Asian neighbor. The resolution, calling on Colombo to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by its own troops and Tamil rebels in the final months of fighting in 2009, is admittedly weak. It is nowhere near an international investigation that the UN and many in the international community argued for.

By J.S. Tissainayagam, Global Post, 24 March 2012 - A few incidents that have led to commentators voicing doubts on the impartiality of the UN’s role in Sri Lanka. - Rights activists are worried that the UNHRC will have to work through the UN office in Sri Lanka to monitor the progress of the implementation. Unfortunately, while the UN’s office there has a functioning human rights desk, it has been completely overshadowed by the UN’s role as a donor and implementer of economic development programmes. The question is: will the UN have the resources and more than that the will to make the necessary transformation?

By Adam Sievering, City Beat, May 11,2011 - On May 7, award-winning Sri Lankan journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam (known as J. S. Tissainayagam, or “Tissa”) spoke about his experience as a prisoner and martyr of the Sri Lankan government at Amnesty International’s Southern Ohio Meeting, held in a conference room at University of Cincinnati’s College of Law.

Tissa and his family have taken asylum in the United States. He now studies at Harvard University and speaks candidly about brutal censorship in Sri Lanka, which continues today.

“People will not speak out on important issues because they are scared,” he said. “Fear rules. There needs to be an impartial, international investigation of the war crimes in Sri Lanka because without accountability, there is no justice. Without justice, there is no resolution.”