Sri Lanka soothes UN with sincerity

• Foreign Minister unveils Govt. plans for transitional justice
• Truth Commission, Office of Missing Persons, Office of Reparations, Special Counsel among promised measures
• Mangala tells UNHRC: New Govt. is ‘different’; says don’t judge Sri Lanka on the broken promises of the past
• Zeid says UN probe report contains findings of ‘most serious nature’
• UN Human Rights Chief says ensuring results from Lankan accountability process important for Council’s own credibility
• President, PM committed to the hilt to deliver justice to victims: Mangala
• TNA wants int'l judges, independent prosecutors and int'l crimes incorporated into body of offences in SL
• US to assist Lanka to address findings of UN report
• UN Probe report out tomorrow, Zeid to present report to press in Geneva

Dharisha Bastians

Reporting from Geneva

Making a landmark statement before the 30th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera articulated Government plans for justice and reconciliation, shortly after a top UN official underscored the importance of keeping international focus on the country to ensure a credible accountability process.

Delivering a 10 minute address, Minister Samaraweera made an impassioned plea to the international community and Sri Lanka›s sceptics for patience with assurances that the new Government was “different” and should not be judged by the mistakes and distortions of the past. The statement came two days before the public release of a report by a UN inquiry panel on allegations that major rights violations and even war crimes had been committed during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.

In his opening statement to the Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra›ad Al Hussein, whose office conducted the probe, said the report contained “findings of a most serious nature.” Zeid said that despite the change of Government in Sri Lanka, the Council owed it to Sri Lankans and to its “own credibility” to ensure results in Sri Lanka's accountability process.

Foreign Minister Mangala Smaraweera addresses the UNHRC session in Geneva yesterday. Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Eastern Province Governor Austin Fernando and Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha are also present

“I welcome the vision shown by President Maithripala Sirisena since his election in January, and the commitments made by the new Government under his leadership. But this Council owes it to Sri Lankans and to its own credibility, to ensure an accountability process that produces results decisiveness, moves beyond the failures of the past and brings the deep institutional changes needed to guarantee non recurrence.”

Minister Samaraweera who led the Sri Lankan delegation to the UNHRC outlined the new administration›s plans to deliver justice to thousands of victims of alleged wartime abuses and decades of political isolation and inequality before the Council.

In an interview at the Palais des Nations with Daily FT minutes after he delivered his speech to the Council, Minister Samaraweera said he was “committed to the hilt” to deliver justice to victims in Sri Lanka.

“More important is the commitment of the President and the Prime Minister. I know them to be committed to the hilt and fully supportive of this process. That is good news for Sri Lanka. We have a Government that is committed to this not only through words but action, and in this short period we have proven it. We have done many things other governments were not even willing to touch before. And there is a lot more to do,” the Minister told Daily FT.

In his speech to the Council, Minister Samaraweera said the Government was proposing a three-tier structure to deal with accountability, including a Commission for Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and Non-recurrence, styled along South African lines and an Office on Missing Persons with expertise from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a judicial mechanism with a Special Counsel or prosecutor to address the problem of impunity for human rights and violations suffered by all communities and an Office for Reparations to implement recommendations by the Truth Commission and the Office of Missing Persons.

The mechanisms would be granted the freedom to apply for ‘financial, material and technical’ assistance from Sri Lanka’s international partners including the OHCHR, the Foreign Minister said.

He said the Government recognised that that the process of reconciliation involves addressing the broad areas of truth seeking, justice, reparations and non-recurrence; the four pillars of a credible mechanism for transitional justice.

"And for non-recurrence to become truly meaningful the necessity of reaching a political settlement that addresses the grievances of the Tamil people," the Minister noted in his speech.

Highlighting the difficulties the new Government was facing as it strives to live up to its international obligations and prevent a domestic backlash for granting too many concessions on human rights issues, Minister Samaraweera insisted that the Government proposals were not motivated by international pressure. His speech to the Council appeared to have been carefully drafted to appeal to both the international community and audiences back home.

For some, the Minister said, the process was not moving as fast they may want. "And for some, we may have already gone too far,” he said, in a frankacknowledgement of the complexity of Sri Lanka's human rights issues.

He vowed that the new administration was not seeking to ‹take cover› by distorting concepts such as sovereignty, but remained ‹open to dialogue› and committed to address deficiencies with international help when required.

"Today, we have a Government in place which acknowledges the suffering of victims across Sri Lanka’s communities; a Government which recognises the mistakes of the past; and is all too aware of the weaknesses of our institutions," Samaraweera told the 47-Member Council last afternoon.

The Minister’s poignant appeals seemed to resonate with member states at the Council whose delegates congratulated him on the speech soon after. But among representatives of the Tamil community, the speech did little to stem the calls for a continued international role in Sri Lanka’s accountability process.

TNA Lawmaker M.A. Sumanthiran who is heading the party’s legal team for the UNHRC sessions in Geneva told Daily FT that Minister Samaraweera had been ‘brave’ to concede the Government’s failure to deliver on reconciliation in the past, but the admission underscored the need for international participation in the accountability process.

“Having conceded that he went on to say ‘now things are different, please trust us, we will do this properly this time’. As representatives of the victim community, all that is well and good but the people simply will not trust for the very reasons that the Minister himself outlined. Unless they see results,” he said.

Sumanthiran said the Government’s proposed mechanism to deal with the thorny issue of war crimes would have to include the full participation of the international community to win the confidence of victims from the Tamil community.

“Yes we would want international judges in special courts that they set up, independent prosecutors and importantly laws to incorporate crimes into the body of offences in Sri Lanka with retrospective effect. This is possible even within the present constitution in Sri Lanka, which in turn will inspire confidence in the people,” Sumanthiran said, soon after the Sri Lankan Minister addressed the Council.

The UN Human Rights Council has adopted three resolutions on Sri Lanka, pushing the Government to address major post-war concerns, finally setting up an UN probe to investigate allegations of war crimes during the final stages of the civil war. See Page 17 for the full speech of Minister Samaraweera.