US SURE INDIA WILL GO WITH IT AGAIN IN NEW LANKA RESOLUTION

January 31, 2013

The United States is sure that India will support a country-specific resolution sponsored by it in the coming session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The U.S. representatives revealed here that it had “decided to sponsor a procedural resolution at the March 2013 session of the U.N. Human Rights Council along with international partners”.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Moore told select media here that “the resolution will be straightforward; it will be a procedural resolution, and it will build on the 2012 resolution which called on Sri Lanka to do more to promote reconciliation and accountability. The resolution will ask the government of Sri Lanka to follow through on its own commitments to its people, including the implementation of the LLRC [Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission] recommendations.” Responding to a question, a transcript of which has been posted on the U.S. Embassy website, Mr. Moore said he was sure that India and all the countries that voted with the U.S. last year would follow the same lead this year: “And the reason there would be another resolution this coming March is because we and the other 23 members of the Human Rights Council who voted for the resolution in 2012 believe that the government of Sri Lanka needs to fulfil the commitment that it’s already made through the LLRC to its people,” he said.

“So this new resolution would reflect our support for those commitments, our continued support. And for the people of Sri Lanka as they continue to face these important issues,” he said.

Official confirmation of the Indian stand was not available. But it is reliably learnt that the issue did figure in all the recent high-level engagements. Sri Lanka has responded to the U.S. announcement, saying that it will defend its rights record. Significant progress has been made, it rcontended, in implementing the recommendations of the LLRC, which went into the causes of the war with the Tamil Tigers, the Hindu reports.