LETTER | Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s three-day trip to Sri Lanka might be important from a diplomatic point of view, but certain parties will expect human rights issues to be raised with the Sri Lankan leaders.

Najib is on an official visit to Sri Lanka with some of his cabinet ministers, like the Health Minister, Dr S Subramaniam, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Azlina Othman Said and Malaysia's special envoy to South Asia, S Samy Vellu.

During his short stay to commemorate 60 years of diplomatic relations between both countries, Najib is expected to meet both the Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and other leading officials.

The prime minister will also witness the signing of several memoranda on matters such as diplomatic training, science and technology study, as well as collaborations between private companies in both countries.

While this diplomatic trip might be important for the reasons above, there are other matters that might considered equally important for Malaysians in general.

Since the MIC president Subramaniam and former president Samy Vellu are on the trip, it is expected that that they might advise Najib to raise the matters of gross human rights violations against Tamils during civil war in Sri Lanka.

I am sure Malaysians in general and Indians in particular would expect our leaders to raise such matters given the global concern about decades-long violations of Tamil rights.

Hundreds and thousands of innocent Tamils were killed during the height of the civil war. Thousands disappeared, with their whereabouts still not known to this day.

Even if Najib spends the bulk of the time discussing matters of mutual interests, surely he cannot dismiss the human rights issues that are dear to some sections of the Malaysian society.

Being the MIC chief, Subramaniam cannot remain silent on what happened in Sri Lanka to the Tamils. At the very least, he could advise Najib to raise the matter, in the hope that Sri Lankan authorities would allow for an international investigation into war crimes.

The former MIC president Samy Vellu is also on the trip. He has been holding to the ministerial status post of a special envoy for a number of years.

I am not sure what he has contributed to so far in developing relations between Malaysia and South Asian countries.

I seriously doubt he has raised human rights issues in countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India or Pakistan. Presumably, he was given this post merely to ensure that he would not create problems for MIC or the Indian community.

The Sri Lankan trip is test case for the leaders.

While Najib has been aggressively courting the Indian community in view of the coming general election, it is not certain whether he will ask the Sri Lankan leaders to take responsibility over human rights violations.

Even if Najib is not going to raise human rights issues, there is nothing stopping Subramaniam or Samy Vellu from raising the matter to the Sri Lankan leaders.

But I have serious doubts that either of them will do so. They are so far removed from the concerns of Indian Malaysians, owing their present positions only to scraps thrown by Umno.

P RAMASAMY is Penang Deputy Chief Minister II and Perai state assemblyperson.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.