UN Human Rights Council And The Virgin Speech Of The Sri Lankan Ambassador

By S. V. Kirubaharan -

October 22, 2012

S. V. Kirubaharan

The 1^st session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) was held in June 2006. Its 21^st session took place last month. Even with its horrendous human rights record, Sri Lanka managed to be a member of the HRC for the first two years but when it stood for re-election in 2008, it was not elected by the UN General Assembly.

This year the HRC completed its sixth year and has seen at least five Sri Lankan Ambassadors / Permanent Representatives. This is one of the many examples of Sri Lanka’s record breaking. The shortest period served and the most humiliated Ambassador/Permanent representative was a Tamil, MsTamara Kunanayakam. This shows in a minor way the racism and discrimination practiced by Rajapaksa’s regime towards Tamils in the island.

However, very happy to note that Tamara Kunanayakam has accepted her re-location to Cuba. This will open the eyes of the Cubans to see how strong the racism and discrimination is, in Sri Lanka.

EU resolution and birth of IIGEP

Sri Lanka is under frequent scrutiny of the HRC. On the very first day of the 2^nd session, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mme Louise Arbour, spoke against the seriously violating countries and Sri Lanka was one of them. She suggested that a permanent International Human Rights Monitoring body be established in Sri Lanka. Following her speech, many Special Rapporteurs who spoke on thematic issues, covered Sri Lanka in their presentations. At the same time there were many parallel meetings on Sri Lanka and various INGOs strongly advocated for a permanent International human rights monitoring body in Sri Lanka.

During the course of the second week of the 2^nd session, diplomats of the European Union took the initiative and then Finland as the holder of the EU presidency produced a text “draft decision 2006/….. Sri Lanka” (A/HRC/2/L.37). The saga started from then.

The Sri Lankan delegation had been instructed from Colombo that under no circumstances should any scrutiny by the HRC be accepted. The Sri Lankan delegation lobbied a few states, especially Asian and African ones not to accept the EU proposed draft decision. To be brief, as a result of its heavy lobbying, Sri Lanka avoided the EU resolution but agreed to an alternative solution to form an, “International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP)”.

The IIGEP was established by the Government of Sri Lanka in February 2007. It was intended to oversee the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI), appointed to inquire into 16 cases of gross human rights violations, and was headed by India’s former chief justice P. N. Bhagwathi. The IIGEP issued three public statements raising serious concerns about the conduct of the premier prosecution body:

à  IIGEP suggestions had been ignored or rejected by the government, whose correspondence with them was “characterised by a lack of respect and civility”.

à  The Sri Lankan government probe into abuses did not meet even basic minimum standards and the Presidential Commission’s Public Inquiry process fell short of International norms and standards.

à  Also the IIGEP reported that there was a “lack of political and institutional will to investigate and inquire into the cases before the (government) commission,”

On 6 March 2008, the IIGEP announced that they were quitting Sri Lanka, accusing the government of failing to tackle the issue – Sri Lankan authorities did not meet even the basic minimum standards in probing serious abuses.

18th & 19th sessions of the HRC                              

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