SL attends UNHRC sessions with impressive post-conflict records: Former AG

Sri Lanka participates in the United Nations Human Rights Council with an impressive record of post-war reconciliation, rehabilitation and resettlement efforts in a background where broad action has been initiated at the highest level to implement the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recommendations, former Attorney General Mohan Pieris said.

The former Attorney General, a member of the Sri Lankan delegation for the UN Human Rights Council said LLRC recommendations are being systematically implemented under two high level committees appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, one an Inter-Ministerial Committee and the other a Cabinet Sub Committee.

“Both committees are under the President’s supervision,” he said. “Nobody can point fingers at Sri Lanka with reason that there was reluctance as such on the part of the Government to implement LLRC recommendations.”

LLRC recommendations are being implemented not to please other nations.

It is being implemented as a part of the country’s policy to bring the nation under one banner as one Sri Lanka, Peiris pointed out.

The Inter-ministerial Committee and the Cabinet Sub-committee on the Implementation of LLRC recommendations are preparing a road map with milestones instructed by President Rajapaksa to implement the recommendations systematically.

He said LLRC recommendations are being implemented in keeping with the country’s National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, which was introduced in September last year. Plantation Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe will lead the Sri Lankan delegation for UNHRC.

The delegation comprised Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva, Prof. G. L. Peiris and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, MP Sajin Vaas Gunawardena and Attorney General Shanthi Eva Wanasundera and several officials from the Attorney General’s Department.

Meanwhile, on the eve of departure for Geneva, Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said Sri Lanka would do its utmost to convince the international community that the country has done enough to implement the recommendations of the LLRC.

Minister of External Affairs Prof. G. L. Peiris addressing media in Geneva said that the Government had started work to address the accountability issues.

“A great deal of work has already been done. We have started collecting and evaluating evidence. The army itself started a court of inquiry. They will talk to witnesses. Also, the government is planning to do a census to verify and ascertain the number of casualty figures. This will be done by the people from those areas,” he said.  The Minister noted that these issues would be addressed in a local context, and a heavy-handed international intervention would only complicate the process.

“It will polarise the problem. Local remedies have to be encouraged in this case,” he said.

Also, he noted that action would be taken to address the land issued as recommended in the LLRC report.