Sri Lanka and 50th  session of UN Human Rights Council

Professor Gamini Lakshman Peiris is not only the most erudite member of the current Cabinet of Ministers, otherwise filled with convicted criminals and dubious characters, but arguably the most educated man to have ever held a cabinet ministerial post in the history of the Sri Lankan republic. A Rhodes scholar to Oxford, head of department of law and vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo by the age of 40, his academic credentials are impeccable.

Such a man of learning could have punched well above his weight (no pun intended), admits intellectual lightweights that occupy seats of political power and made a substantial impact as the likes of Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake had done a generation ago. This waste of potential was glaringly visible last week when the foreign minister toured Geneva. In his weeklong sojourn to the European city Prof. Peiris cut a rather pathetic figure making an irrational argument to ease the pressure on the country’s human rights record due to the prevailing economic crisis. 

The crux of his message delivered to multiple interlocutors and the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council is that “the current socio-economic situation in Sri Lanka needs the empathy and understanding of the international community” and that the country needs “space to deal with the present socio-economic issues.” Basically the message from the country’s top diplomat to the world is that the current Government has messed things up so badly, it now wants ‘space’ to clean up the mess before addressing human rights. 

First of all, addressing the appalling human rights record of the country and its current economic woes are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the economic crisis could be better managed if the Government that G.L. Peiris represents actually took a greater interest in the rights of citizens. 

Police brutality, lack of accountability of the military, violence against peaceful protesters, and discrimination between citizens in distribution of goods and services, have all worsened the economic predicament rather than ease the crisis. If the Government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa had a better human rights record and adhered to higher standards of democracy and good governance the level of international assistance would have been far greater. Instead of pleading for “space” to address the socio-economic issues G.L. Peiris should actually be asking for assistance to ensure the protection of rights during this crisis created by his political masters.

Secondly, had G.L. Peiris and the political dispensation he represents genuinely attempted to improve the rights of Sri Lankans rather than protect perpetrators of violations, there might have been some sympathy for his current pleas.

Yet this is the same G.L. Peiris in who in 2010-2015 told the world that Sri Lanka needed “time and space” because it had so successfully defeated terrorism. These disingenuous stalling tactics only ensured that the wheels of international jurisdiction turned on the country. As a result, in 2021 the Human Rights Council established a mechanism at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “to collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence relating to violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes in Sri Lanka.”

Irony is clearly lost on G.L. Peiris who is now begging for sympathy from the international community on its human rights while sitting next to an alleged executioner. During his weeklong meetings in Geneva the foreign minister was accompanied by Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN, C.A. Chandraprema, a former paramilitary member accused of numerous criminal acts including the killing of three human rights lawyers during the 1987-89 violence. Chandraprema better known by his nom de guerre Tadi Priyantha continues to be G.L. Peiris’s envoy to the UN human rights body where Sri Lanka makes its case for ‘time and space’ to handle the socio-economic crisis while placing human rights on the backburner. The disingenuous pleas of Gamini Lakshman Peiris, the most educated and intelligent man in the Cabinet of Ministers could not be more obvious.