The Geneva Resolution: A Divided Vote And Even More Divided Responses

By Rajan Philips -March 30, 2014 

Rajan Philips

The UNHCR vote on the Sri Lankan resolution divided along continental boundaries. Europe (Western and Eastern) and America (North and South) were the overwhelming supporters of the resolution. No country from these continents abstained on the vote; only three (Russia, Cuba and Venezuela) voted against, and the remaining 18 accounted for nearly 80% of the 23 ‘yes’ votes for the resolution. Asia and Africa voted in stark contrast: almost half the countries  from each continent (six from each and 12 in all) abstained from voting, nine (six from Asia and three from Africa) voted against, and only five countries voted for – four from Africa and a solitary South Korea for all of Asia.  It will not be too cynical to say that the Sinhalese and the Tamils, rather their self-accredited (if not discredited) representatives are not only at one another’s throats, but they have also managed to divide the world – East and West – between them. India suddenly saw new light and found the whole business “intrusive … inconsistent and impractical” and declared its non-alignment.  Remember Nehru’s famous musing: “I am a queer mixture of the East and the West, at home nowhere, and out of place everywhere!”

The responses to the vote have been equally divided and wholly contradictory, within Sri Lanka and outside. Let us look at the domestic reactions first. While the Sri Lankan President has rejected the resolution out of hand in keeping with the government’s official position that the resolution is ‘illegal’, the TNA leader, R. Sampanthan, has welcomed it as “a victory for all Sri Lanka’s people in their struggle for truth, justice and reconciliation … and … a meaningful opportunity for all communities in Sri Lanka to join an impartial, independent process in which we grapple with serious violations of human rights and crimes committed in our own respective names.”  In between, there are other voices – some calling rather mischievously, for example, for a new LLRC to start probing everything from beginning to end and targeting not just the government and the LTTE but “all parties” to include India; and others suggesting more responsibly that the Sri Lankan government must rapidly and sincerely carry out every requirement in the resolution except agreeing to investigation by the Office of the High Commissioner.  The latter approach was also the exit door that the LLRC Commission suggested to the government to avoid the predicament that it has now gotten into.Read More