Even as the United States submitted a draft resolution in the 19th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Sri Lanka stepped up its diplomatic offensive in a bid to ensure that it did not come in for adverse criticism in the Rights body.
The draft resolution on Promoting Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka, submitted aims at promoting reconciliation and accountability and stresses on the need to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, set up to probe the conflict years in Sri Lanka, and suggest ways to prevent its recurrence.
Sri Lanka’s main faces at the meet, Ambassador Tamara Kunanayakam, its Foreign Minister G.L.Peiris, and Special Envoy on Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, have stepped up efforts to win friends at the council. Sri Lanka believes that it has won enough friends in the council to stave off an embarrassing situation. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was to attend the inauguration of an international meet on Ports here on Thursday, stayed away. One Minister told the audience at the function that Mr.Rajapaksa was indisposed.
Prof.Peiris continued his “embrace Africa” campaign. Following his meetings with Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Foreign Minister of South Africa, he had discussions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria, South Africa.
Ms.Kunanayakam sought to explain the motivations of the Western powers for pushing a resolution against Sri Lanka: “What, in fact, are the US trying to tell us with their draft resolution? They are not saying that our LLRC report is bad. They are not saying that there is gross and systematic violations of human rights in Sri Lanka. What they are saying is that they don’t have confidence that we will implement the recommendations. […] They are judging our intentions, not the ground reality! This is unacceptable to most countries, because it gives a role to the Council that was never intended. Moreover, there is a general feeling that Sri Lanka is being punished for cooperating,” she said, in an interview posted at the Geneva Sri Lanka Mission’s website.
Another vocal Sri Lankan diplomat, Dayan Jayatilleka, said that the US resolution at the UN HRC in Geneva has deepened the schisms in Sri Lankan society. “That resolution will have the same polarising function as did the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), in defining each political tendency in the popular mind for a while to come…The popularly elected government of Sri Lanka is not responsible in the first or last instance to any international forum or intergovernmental body composed of governments responsible to their respective citizenries,” he said
NGO perspective
Organisations such as the Asian Human Rights Commission are of the opinion that the festering problems in Sri Lanka can only be addressed with the suggestions proposed by the resolution to begin to deal with problems with the assistance of United Nations and the international community. “We see no basis for any alarm but rather a window of opportunity for constructive change for the betterment of everyone. We therefore call on everyone to participate in this debate in a constructive manner and support this resolution,” it said in a statement released here.
In a separate statement, the North East Women’s Network, called upon the UN and its member states to help Sri Lanka on its road to reconciliation and peace through accountability and justice and to strengthen its domestic mechanisms by ensuring international monitoring. “We call upon the Sri Lankan State to view the proposed resolution at the UN Human Rights Council as a tool for the implementation of its vision for a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic community and for ensuring long lasting peace for the women who have lost so much and continue to suffer. The Sri Lankan government has been given an opportunity to make real its promises to the ethnic minorities, especially the women in this country who have suffered from three decades of war. We hope the government will fulfill this promise and make women real citizens of this nation,” it said.
Keywords: Sri Lanka human rights issue
The Tamils were never attacked in Colombo by the Sinhalese during the suppresion of the LTTE, which shows that the problem is not of ethnic nature. The Tamils of Sri Lanka are also not a homogenous group. The Provincial Councils forced on us in a mighty hurry in 1987 is a clear-cut failure. Let us first identify the real issues clearly with the participation of people. The help of a reputed panel (perhaps with foreign representation) could be beneficial, as the people do not wish to miss this chance. People on the street, tea fields and in the paddy fields are very mature today.What is the meaning of their heavy silence?
LTTE has killed so many Tamils than anyone else.The president & the Sinhalese forces rescued them from Tamil tiger terrorists iron fist.
I think other countries should help Sri Lanka to defeat US led UN Proposals. Otherwise the same could happen them in the future.
It is pity to see, how justice becomes helpless in front of power.
According to Buddha’s Doctrine " Dhitta Dhama wedaniya Karma " US will have to face the consequences of bad Karma (Sins) very soon. They have committed so many crimes in the world (Japan/Korea/Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Pakistan) so that they will have to pay them back.
Sri Lanka all by itself has proposed an Action Plan to Implement Human Rights in Sri Lanka.
This an admission of the state of human rights.The LLRC report has recommended demilitarisation. This is urgent. The elected representatives of the Northeast Provincial council should be allowed to run its affairs, as is happening in all other councils, instead of the Military Governer and the armed forces running the council
The Office of the High Commission for Human Rights(OHCHR) has been assigned the task of helping the SL gov.implement the provisions of the LLRC even as the internal probe recommendations are seen by many quarters lacking in character to address the issues of accountability. The gov. of that country as per theUN Resolution has to establish conditions that would kick start the process of reconciliation by establishing justice, equality and accountability for all of its citizens. The Resolution has demanded much to that gov's chargein a complete action plan regarding the steps it has taken to implement the recommendations of its own LLRC and to take measures regarding violations of international laws by its agencies. Also it wants to initiate land reforms,dispute redressal mechanisms,devolution of political and administrative powers to provinces within the provisions of its constitution,refurnishing its institutions so that the democratic rights of people are upheld.
[said that the US resolution at the UN HRC in Geneva has deepened the schisms in Sri Lankan society.] Ah, here we go again, everybody's favourite subterfuge: "Yeah, it's true that we hate and kill one another, but we all lived in peace and harmony before the diabolical western imperialists came and corrupted our innocent childish minds."
Very recently, Tamara Kunanayakam, as quoted by Sri Lankan govt news paper said, western countries are pushing for a regime change. Now she is cooking another story. The whole world knows how reliasble the Sri Lankan govt and it's diplomats are. India know this very well, but want to pretend otherwise for their benefits!
Those NGOs and governments who bring charges against Sri Lanka at the
UNHRC never made even a whimper of protest against the LTTE while it
was unleashing terror and abducting children and turning them into
cannon fodder. LTTE death squads and suicide bombers murdered
thousands of civilians(Tamils,Sinhala,Muslim) and blew many crowded
trains and buses, but the so-called human rights activists looked the
other way.They never complained to UNHRC against the LTTE or to the
western nations to deal with the terrorists responsible for crimes
against civilians in Sri Lanka. Many NGOs that have endorsed the
Darusman report and the US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka never
condemned the LTTE or called upon the UN to take punitive action
against the terrorists for its crimes. The current resolution against
Sri Lanka by western countries is nothing but a way to take revenge
for destroying a terrorist group against their will.
Hope you will publish this. Indian media unfortunately censors any indian involvement in the human rights violations. After over a 100,000 people have lost their lives it is imperative that we really get to the bottom of this debacle. GOSL stands accused of Rights violations but no mention is made of the country that armed and trained a terrorist movement, the west that gave refuge to people who funded the terrorist movement and the church that gave moral support. To accuse SL of Rights abuse especially by America that has abused the rights of the Iraqis afghans etc is immoral , Unfair and is blatantly hypocritical
What a Joke, the corrupt regime is protesting and fighting against the findings of its own commission of inquiry. It is a fact that our peaceful democratic Sri Lanka is now turned into a corrupt lawless Banana Republic. People have no rights what so ever. No democracy, the Police and the Judiciary are completely politicised. Citizens have no faith in either. The war hero is imprisoned on fabricated charges by the Kangaroo Courts. The corrupt Leaders are dinning and dancing with the LTTE Terrorists who now support the corrupt regime. The citizens who protest the unbearable high cost of living are shot to death. The police & Kangaroo Courts are used to restrict peaceful demonstrations. We need International pressure to save the Country.
This situation at the UNHRC is getting bogged down on one thing. That is the Tamil Diasporas pressing the Western powers to take action where it ridiculously impossible when the West is blatantly lopsided in so called human rights issues that occur around the World; while they themselves are violators from the get going of this matter. Where was USA when Israel was bombing Lebanon; then the USA massacring innocent people – women and children through illegal wars around the world? Sri Lanka has all the rights to defend its interests. UN is an arm of the West to terrorize poor but clever nations such as Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has to prevail from Western arrogance and the divide and rule attitude. If India is to go with the West, then it means a lot to Indians in dealing with the nations of the Asian sub region. After all it has to deal with Asians first and then with the West. West has to learn its lesson one day, and that day is not too far away as most noteworthy nations around the World are with Sri Lanka.
Srilanka would come out of this crisis. But in reality it has to put forward an acceptable solution to the tamil problem. It's not that the LLRC report is bad or good but what the Srilankan government learnt from it? and what amends it made to clarify its mistakes? Rajapakse should realise that the Tamils are also Srilankans and they should have the same rights and priorities as the Singhalese. Normally a true leader should pave way to rebuild a country after a war. But the Srilankan leader is doing his best to ruin the country.
The Tamil Tiger terrorist movement exists in USA under the guise of various
Charitable Organizations which are laundering the millions of money the LTTE
have obtained through illegal means - i.e. drug smuggling, human smuggling,
bank robberies, prostitution, etc. These "frontline" organizations contributed large
sums of money to several leading Democratic Party candidates during the 2008 US
Presidential election run-ups - especially to two LEADING politicians of that party.
These politicians have not denied receiving such "donations" from these
organizations affiliated to a terrorist organization - in fact one of these leading
Democrats even returned some of these "donations" when SHE was questioned
about this matter. Several Tamil persons in high places in American society - who
are closely associated with these Tamil (terrorist) frontline organizations, even rub
shoulders with these politicians - a classic example is Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge
fund fraudster who's now arrested.
Has the UNHRC drafted any resolutions against human right violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia? If not the Sri Lanka resolution is a joke. I hope everyone knows about the resolution on India. It is time to separate from this western bias organizations and establish our own.
Americans are no saints. Why didn't the UN human rights council bring America before them for the carnage and genocide perpetrated against the Iraqis, Libyans, Afghans, Vietnamese and so on and so forth. Is the organisation a puppet of US?
Thank you for providing coverage of the North East Women's Network's statement.
The heavy militarisation of the North and East, and the vulnerable position this
leaves women in, is extremely worrying, and very much under-reported. It is also
important to see that there are grassroots voices in Sri Lanka that welcome
international investigations and scrutiny. The Dayan Jayatilleke's of the world love to
portray international involvement as neo-imperialist adventuring. It is not. As this
statement reveals, international monitoring amplifies the many marginalised voices
within Sri Lanka.
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