Sri Lanka appoints first Tamil Navy chief after four decades

Sinniah, who played a decisive role in the destruction of the LTTE warships in deep sea during the height of the civil war, was appointed as the Navy chief by President Maithripala Sirisena.

"Rear Admiral Travis Sinniah, who has served Sri Lanka Navy with immense loyalty for many decades, took office as the Navy Commander today," President Sirisena tweeted.

His services will be effective from August 22. Sinniah succeeds Vice Admiral Ravi Wijegunaratne who has retired.

He is the second Tamil to head the Lankan Navy after Rajan Kadirgamar, who was the commander in the late 1960s.

Sinniah is the first from the Tamil community to head the Navy since the outbreak of the civil war in the north and east of the island in 1972.

He successfully commanded a mission in 2007 to destroy the LTTE's weapons smuggling ships in international waters off Indonesia and Australia, that is considered as Sri Lankan Navy's biggest achievement, media

reports said.

Sinniah, who joined the Navy in 1982, was the senior most Naval officer to be in active combat operations at sea during the conflict with the LTTE separatists.

It was also announced that Wijegunaratne would be appointed as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).

The LTTE waged a war with the government to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the regions with the conflict ending in 2009. Tamils in the country claim discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority.

According to UN figures, up to 40,000 civilians were killed by security forces during Rajapaksa's regime that brought an end to the brutal civil war with with the defeat of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.

Colombo: International judges cannot work in Sri Lanka to hear cases of alleged war crimes blamed on the government troops and the LTTE as the Constitution does not permit it, new Foreign Minister Thilak Marapona said on Friday.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution co- sponsored by Sri Lanka in 2015 called for a hybrid international mechanism to hear alleged cases of war crimes blamed on the government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"Sri Lanka's Constitution does not allow foreign judges to operate in the country and hear cases," Marapona told reporters here.

"We have told the international community that our constitution does not permit that and they have accepted it," Marapona said.

The minister said the UNHRC has not advocated foreign judges to sit during the judgement of cases.

The Tamil and international rights organisations have demanded foreign judges in cases probing alleged human rights violations during the civil war as they have no trust in the country's judiciary.

Lanka maintains that since the new government came into power in 2015, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary has been established.

Sri Lanka has faced three adverse UNHRC resolutions since 2012. In 2014, the resolution prescribed international investigations into human rights abuses blamed on both the LTTE and the government troops. The previous Mahinda Rajapaksa government refused to cooperate with the UN on the resolutions citing sovereignty.