•HRES 926 IH 
Whereas, beginning in March 2022, tens of thousands of Sri 
Lankans participated in largely peaceful protests lasting 
more than 100 days, leading to the resignation of Presi-
dent Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the appointment of Ranil 
Wickremesinghe as the new President of Sri Lanka; 
Whereas the Wickremesinghe government, citing economic 
constraints, indefinitely postponed local elections sched-
uled for March 9, 2023, in violation of the Constitution 
of Sri Lanka; 
Whereas, on February 20, 2023, thousands of largely peace-
ful protestors demonstrated against the decision to post-
pone local elections, to which the Sri Lankan police re-
sponded by firing tear gas and water cannons; 
Whereas the Government of Sri Lanka continues to repress 
dissent and protest, conduct surveillance and harass 
members of civil society, and use the Prevention of Ter-
rorism Act to target political opposition members of eth-
nic and religious minority groups, activists, and journal-
ists; 
Whereas the Government of Sri Lanka continues to partici-
pate in and facilitate the illegal appropriation of land in 
the North and East, areas of historical habitation of 
Tamil speaking peoples and various ethnic and religious 
groups; 
Whereas the Government of Sri Lanka refuses to conduct 
transparent and independent investigations into credible 
allegations of corruption, historic atrocities, and other 
gross violations of human rights against Sinhalese, 
Tamil, and Muslim communities, and the United Nations 
and others have recognized that longstanding impunity 
for corruption and other human rights violations and 
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•HRES 926 IH 
abuses is a root cause of the current crisis and that many 
actors responsible for the current crisis have been impli-
cated in abuses dating back to the civil war and the JVP 
insurrection; 
Whereas for more than 30 years, Sri Lanka was enveloped 
in a civil war in which, according to United Nations re-
ports, tens of thousands of Sri Lankans died and thou-
sands more were raped, tortured, forcibly disappeared, or 
went missing; 
Whereas United Nations reports maintain that members of 
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and mem-
bers of the Government and security services of Sri 
Lanka were implicated in horrific atrocities and human 
rights violations and abuses against Sri Lankan civilians 
during the civil war; 
Whereas on multiple occasions, the Government of Sri Lanka 
has publicly committed to pursuing meaningful justice 
and accountability for conflict-related crimes and griev-
ances, including in President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s May 
2009 joint statement with United Nations Secretary-Gen-
eral Ban Ki-Moon and in the government of then-Prime 
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s cosponsoring of United 
Nations Human Rights Council resolution 30/1, commit-
ting to a holistic transitional justice strategy, including a 
commission for truth, justice, reconciliation, and non-re-
currence and a judicial mechanism to prosecute violations 
and abuses of human rights and violations of inter-
national humanitarian law; 
Whereas in January 2016, under then-Prime Minister 
Wickremesinghe, the Government of Sri Lanka estab-
lished a Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mech-
anisms led by respected members of Sri Lankan civil so-
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•HRES 926 IH 
ciety, which spoke to more than 7,000 Sri Lankans and 
issued a 700-page report with findings and recommenda-
tions about what the Sri Lankan people wanted from the 
Sri Lankan government in relation to justice and rec-
onciliation, including recommendations supporting inter-
national involvement in certain transitional justice mech-
anisms; 
Whereas successive Sri Lankan governments have failed to 
live up to those commitments and address the desire of 
Sri Lankan victims and survivors for meaningful justice 
and accountability for the atrocities, and in March 2020, 
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s administration withdrew 
the Government of Sri Lanka’s commitment to imple-
ment Human Rights Council resolution 30/1; 
Whereas the majority of the LTTE leadership were killed or 
disappeared during the civil war and therefore cannot 
stand trial for their crimes, and despite evidence impli-
cating Sri Lankan government officials and security 
forces in atrocity crimes committed against Sri Lankan 
civilians during the war, no such officials or forces have 
faced justice for their crimes; 
Whereas in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the Department of State 
imposed visa restrictions against Sri Lankan officials for 
their involvement in gross violations of human rights, in-
cluding torture and inhumane punishment during the 
civil war, but successive Sri Lankan governments have 
promoted and empowered those same individuals; 
Whereas in 2021 and 2022, the United States cosponsored 
United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions 46/1 
and 51/1, mandating that the United Nations collect, 
analyze, and preserve information and evidence of gross 
violations of human rights and serious violations of inter-
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•HRES 926 IH 
national humanitarian law in Sri Lanka for future ac-
countability processes; and 
Whereas in September 2023, the United Nations High Com-
missioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, issued a re-
port that noted, ‘‘The 2022 economic crisis is a dem-
onstration of the indivisibility of human rights and how 
impunity, corruption and the weakening of democratic 
and rule of law institutions ultimately impacted the eco-
nomic situation. In order to achieve a path to recovery 
and sustainable development Sri Lanka will need to ad-
dress the longer-term serious governance and account-
ability deficits, as well as the continuing legacy of the 
armed conflict.’’: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) supports the peaceful, democratic, and eco-
nomic aspirations of the people of Sri Lanka; 
(2) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to hold 
free and fair local and provincial elections without 
further delay; 
(3) urges the Government and security forces of 
Sri Lanka to respect the rights of all Sri Lankans, 
including the right to protest peacefully, associate 
freely, and commemorate their dead; 
(4) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to insti-
tute meaningful security sector reform, including by 
reducing the deployment of security forces across the 
North and East to appropriate peacetime levels, and 
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ensure those credibly implicated in human rights 
abuses are removed from positions of authority; 
(5) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to 
promote an inclusive, pluralistic Sri Lanka through 
structural reforms and confidence-building measures 
to address corruption, nepotism, outsized expendi-
tures on the military, minority disenfranchisement, 
impunity, and other issues that hamper the long- 
term potential growth of Sri Lanka; 
(6) 
welcomes 
Sri 
Lanka’s 
newly 
passed 
anticorruption legislation and calls on the Govern-
ment of Sri Lanka to ensure that investigations and 
prosecutions of corrupt officials can move forward 
independently and impartially; 
(7) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to 
strengthen the rule of law, including by respecting 
and reinforcing the independence of the judiciary 
and independent institutions; 
(8) welcomes the October 2022 passage of the 
21st Amendment package by the Parliament of Sri 
Lanka as an initial step toward reducing centralized 
power and encourages further measures to alleviate 
a lack of meaningful checks and balances; 
(9) welcomes the initial agreement by the Inter-
national Monetary Fund to loan Sri Lanka 
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$3,000,000,000 to help address the ongoing eco-
nomic crisis and urges the Government of Sri Lanka 
to address the recommendations of the International 
Monetary Fund’s September 30, 2023, staff report, 
which notes that the ‘‘absence of visible progress on 
addressing corruption and holding officials to ac-
count for past behaviour raises popular concerns 
that officials will continue to enjoy impunity for 
their misconduct’’; 
(10) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to im-
mediately repeal or amend the Prevention of Ter-
rorism Act and ensure that the Act or any counter-
terrorism laws passed to replace it are aligned with 
international norms and reflect inclusive consultation 
with Sri Lankan civil society; 
(11) calls for an immediate moratorium on the 
appropriation of land facilitated by the Government 
of Sri Lanka in the North and East and restitution 
of appropriated lands in a way that guarantees ef-
fective access and productive use; 
(12) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to 
fully implement the Constitution of Sri Lanka, in-
cluding the 13th Amendment’s commitments to de-
volve specified powers over land, the police, edu-
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cation, health, agriculture, housing, and finances to 
the provinces; 
(13) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to 
reach a consensus with opposition parties on behalf 
of all Sri Lankans, including Tamils, Indian-origin 
Tamils, Muslims, and members of other religious 
and ethnic minority groups, to address longstanding 
issues, including those relating to human rights vio-
lations and abuses, disenfranchisement, justice, and 
accountability, and work toward a sustainable polit-
ical solution that promotes reconciliation; 
(14) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to 
accept and use Sri Lanka’s own Consultation Task 
Force report as the basis for taking action in sup-
port of justice, accountability, and reconciliation, 
and further calls on the government to design and 
implement all justice measures, including a potential 
truth commission, with input from, the participation 
of, and support from victims and survivors; and 
(15) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to en-
gage positively and cooperatively with the United 
Nations’ Human Rights Council, agencies, and spe-
cial procedure mandate holders and facilitate the im-
plementation of their recommendations on good gov-
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•HRES 926 IH 
ernance, rule of law, corruption, justice, account-
ability, and human rights. 
Æ 
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