Sri Lanka in early preparations for possible human rights challenges at next UN meeting

By Uditha Jayasinghe

High on its recent UN success, Sri Lanka is already preparing for fresh contentions on human rights and political reconciliation issues at the next UN Human Rights Council General Meeting scheduled for March 2012, a top Government Minister said yesterday.

Plantations Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who headed the special team to the UNHRC earlier this month, told media that the Sri Lankan Government had already started preparing for the 2012 UN sessions as it expected another round of allegations concerning human rights.

The country managed to prevent a UNHRC resolution for the report from the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) being discussed at the 2012 session. It also managed to voice strong protest over the UN Secretary General’s report being released to the UNHRC without the knowledge of the Government.

Sri Lanka is also adamant that it will continue to fight against a push from Western countries for an international investigation regarding alleged war crimes during the last phase of the war.

“Even though we were successful at the recently concluded UN General Meeting and UNHRC sessions, there is always the danger that countries with pro-Tamil Diaspora leanings will continue to create issues for Sri Lanka,” predicted Minister Samarasinghe.

“We defeated the push for international investigations because we acted as a team,” Samarasinghe insisted, adding that the embassies as well as the international politicians that the group held discussions with were very positive of the progress achieved by Sri Lanka in such a short period of time.

“We were surprised by the UN report being released,” he admitted, but insisted that they were able to galvanise support by taking the stance that this breach of etiquette could affect other countries. “We built consensus with a range of countries and showed them how this could affect them tomorrow and were commended for our unwavering stance and proactive initiatives.”

Eight countries had submitted a letter to the UNHCR saying that the Darusman Report could not even be used as an “information document”. These included Russia, Cuba, Malaysia, Algeria, Pakistan and China.

The informal session organised by Canada to discuss the LLRC report and build consensus for it to be discussed at the next UN General Assembly saw the participation of former Attorney General Mohan Peiris, who argued against such a move. “He was so convincing that this resolution was not even presented by Canada because they realised that they would not get enough votes to pass it.”

Sri Lanka was adamant that it does not want the LLRC report discussed at the UN as it could renew a push for international investigations as well as keep the country’s human rights record in the limelight at successive UN sessions.

The Minister thanked moderate countries and pledged to continue fighting for the sovereign rights of Sri Lanka.