United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa have agreed on the need to move forward on issues related to political settlement, reconciliation and accountability in the island nation.
At a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, the two leaders referred to the joint statement issued at the end of Mr. Ban's visit to Sri Lanka days after the war ended in May last, and underlined the need for expeditious movement on issues covered in the statement.
The interaction was the first since Mr. Ban appointed a panel of experts to advise him on issues related to Sri Lanka despite strong protests by Colombo.
Sri Lanka had termed the U.N. panel as interference in its internal affairs. Colombo has been trying to impress the world that the eight-member Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) appointed by Mr. Rajapaksa would cover all aspects of the conflict and political reconciliation to the ethnic conflict.
An official statement by the U.N. on the meeting said Mr. Ban said the President's strong political mandate provided a unique opportunity to deliver on his commitments to address the issues of political settlement, reconciliation and accountability.
“Mr. Rajapaksa, for his part, underlined that development and education in the north of Sri Lanka were integral to national reconciliation. He gave examples of progress made on reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in that regard.
“The President also updated the Secretary-General on the work of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission”, it said.
A statement by Mr. Rajapaksa's office characterised the meeting with Mr. Ban as “highly productive” and said the President apprised Mr. Ban that the LLRC was fully transparent and was established on the principles of accountability in keeping with Sri Lanka's own method of searching for the truth regarding a prolonged conflict, and identifying ways of preventing such conflicts in the future.
It said Mr. Ban explained to the President that the committee appointed by him relating to Sri Lanka was in no way empowered to investigate charges against Sri Lanka, but was solely to advise him on matters relating to Sri Lanka.
“President Rajapaksa informed the UNSG that the LLRC had shown it was ready to reach out to the people affected by the conflict by holding sittings in the war torn areas; it was fully accessible, and was ready to give a hearing to anyone or any organisation that had information of value to the process of reconciliation and restorative justice in Sri Lanka”.
It said the discussions also brought out the fact that the reports of U.N. agencies such as the UNHCR and others working on the ground had underlined the speed of IDP resettlement and that there were no conditions prevailing anymore for Tamils from Sri Lanka to seek refugee status in groups.
