UNP slams Govt. foreign policy

• Claims Govt. has lost New Delhi’s support
• Kiriella says Govt. setting the stage for South Sudan type referendum and secession in Lanka
• Says Govt. unlikely to contest second US-backed resolution in Geneva

By Dharisha Bastians

The main Opposition United National Party yesterday slammed the Government’s handling of foreign policy, saying it had pushed Sri Lanka to the edge of a major international disaster and warned of a South Sudan type of secession unless swift action was taken to address minority political grievances.

With the US gearing up to present a second resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next week, UNP Senior Vice President and Parliamentarian Lakshman Kiriella told a media briefing yesterday that it was the first time in the country’s post-independence history that it was facing such serious international censure.

“This country has had various Governments ruling since 1948. It took the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government to precipitate a situation that places Sri Lanka on the edge of an international war crimes inquiry and even a South Sudan type UN mandated referendum and secession,” Kiriella said.

The Opposition Legislator said that successive US-backed resolutions at the UNHRC were a result of the Rajapaksa administration’s broken promises to the international community.

“The Government insisted on making war and then promised the international community and India it would go beyond the 13th Amendment to devolve power to the Tamils. It promised to implement LLRC recommendations and investigate human rights abuses during the war. None of those commitments have been lived up to,” Kiriella told media personnel in Colombo.

Charging that the Government had practically abandoned the battle in Geneva, the UNP Senior Vice President said that the new draft of the US-sponsored UNHRC resolution was welcoming the call for an international war crimes inquiry.

“We are hearing now that the Government will not even contest the resolution – they have been warned that the defeat would be astounding at the Council this year,” Kiriella announced.

He said it was a damning indictment on the incumbent regime that it had managed to sour relations with India, which the UNP MP said had always been the cornerstone of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy and the only country that truly mattered.

“The Western countries could not bring a resolution without India’s green light. This is the extent to which this Government has damaged relations with New Delhi,” Kiriella charged.

The UNP Parliamentarian said that the Government had not only antagonised the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, but every other state in the country, as was evident during the Indian Parliamentary debate on Sri Lanka this week. “MPs from every Indian state spoke against the Sri Lankan Government,” he charged.

Sri Lanka is losing friends all over the world, Kiriella added, saying a group of 25 Malaysian Parliamentarians had presented a resolution calling on the Malaysian Government to present its own resolution at the UNHRC against Sri Lanka.

“Malaysia is one of the biggest investors in Sri Lanka, so these developments are a threat to the economy of the country as well,” the UNP MP said.

According to Kiriella, the Tamil diaspora is mobilising in Geneva and demanding a referendum in the north and east of the country.

“The trajectory is obvious. The question the diaspora groups want asked at the referendum is whether the north and east people want to remain part of Sri Lanka,” Kiriella said, warning that this was exactly the way things happened in Sudan.

The UNP MP said that it was the Government’s broken promises and lack of commitment to true power sharing and reconciliation that was empowering Tamil diaspora groups.

He said the UNP had consistently pledged to extend its fullest support to the Government to implement the 13th Amendment that would devolve power to the provinces including the north and east.

All the international community really wants is for the state of Sri Lanka to make progress on a political solution and find a way to apologise, forgive and heal, Kiriella told the Daily FT, saying the Truth Commission and inquiry mechanism had been sufficient even for post-apartheid South Africa.