Geneva: From ‘Roasting’ In ‘87 To Toasting In ‘09

By Dayan Jayatilleka -April 29, 2013

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

Let’s see what an independent and authoritative source has to say about May 2009 Geneva and the role of Sri Lanka’s Ambassador/Permanent Representative at the time. In its 8^th-14^th August 2009 issue,  the prestigious journal The Economist (London) referred to “…Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Geneva, who warded off the threatened UN war-crimes probe in May [2009]…” (‘Sri Lanka after the war: Behind the Rajapaksa Brothers’ Smiles’, p 43)

How does one identify successful diplomacy and who is to do so credibly and authoritatively? Wikileaks revelations of confidential cable traffic to Washington DC, threw a spotlight on a moment when the US, and in one case France, another Permanent member of the Security Council, regarded Sri Lanka as following “an effective” and even “a very effective diplomatic approach”, in challenging conditions.

Though newspapers had already published the Wikileaks cable disclosing that in April 2009, the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, spent 60% of his time on Sri Lanka due to the “very vocal Tamil Diaspora in the UK”, what was unknown at the time was that Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State of the world’s sole superpower, had instructed its Mission in Geneva to throw its weight behind the move on Sri Lanka at the UN HRC Special Sessions in 2009.

“Mission Geneva is requested to convey to the Czech Republic and other like-minded members of the HRC that the USG supports a special session on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and related aspects of the humanitarian situation. Mission is further requested to provide assistance, as needed, to the Czech Republic in obtaining others, signatures to support holding this session…Mission is also instructed to engage with HRC members to negotiate a resolution as an outcome of this special session, if held. Department believes a special session that does not result in a resolution would be hailed as a victory by the Government of Sri Lanka. Instructions for line edits to the resolution will be provided by Department upon review of a draft.” [Cable dated 4th May 2009 from Secretary of State (United States)]

Those were the odds then; that was the combination that Sri Lanka was up against in May 2009. We entered the battle with an added disadvantage: we were no longer a member state of the UN HRC. Nominated by the Asian Group, I had been a Vice President of the Council in 2007-8, but we had lost the election held in the UNGA New York by 2009, a venue I was not allowed to attend as PRUN-Geneva, by the edict of the then Foreign Minister, which reversed a norm.

As early as September 2007, just two months after I had taken over as Ambassador/PRUN, the Western Group, led by the UK, was revising and reactivating a resolution that had been hanging over Sri Lanka in the previous year, 2006 – a danger and challenge which I had inherited.

“….a UK Mission contact told us that work is only at an early stage on the text of a possible resolution, which would update one that the EU put forward in last year’s Council session.” [Cable dated 10th September 2007]

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Protest against ethnic hatred in Sri Lanka

28 April 2013 

About 500 people have marched through the centre of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, protesting against a recent wave of ethnic hatred which has seen hardline Buddhists targeting the Muslim minority.

The march comes amid calls against Sri Lanka's hosting of the Commonwealth summit later this year.

The BBC's Charles Haviland was at the rally.

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