Foreign ministry changes Geneva draft in Sinhala translation

Sep 29, 2015

The Sinhala translation, posted in the foreign affairs ministry website, of the draft proposal submitted to the UNHRC’s 30th session has two big mistakes. Both mistakes are in the very important paragraph on the participation of international judges in the mechanism for accountability in Sri Lanka. Many websites have carried articles quoting this wrong translation and claiming it to be a victory of Sri Lanka.

It is unclear as to whether these were intentional or a mistake, but the paragraph in question is being quoted as a victory of the government. See mistake in the translation:

In the sixth paragraph, ‘special counsel’ has been translated differently in two instances. Firstly, it has been translated as a විශේෂ කවුන්සිලයක් and secondly as a විශේෂ උපදේශක කාර්යාලයක්. Also, it also claims to be විදේශීය විනිසුරුවරුන්ගෙන්, විත්තිය වෙනුවෙන් පෙනී සිටින නීතිඥයන්, අභිචෝදකයන් හා විමර්ශකයන්ගෙන් සමන්විත විශේෂ උපදේශක කාර්යාලයක සහභාගීත්වයක්. It is an office to be set up by the government and not a consultancy office of international judges’

Secondly, in the same paragraph, ‘participation in a Sri Lankan judicial mechanism’ has been translated as ශී‍්‍ර ලංකා අධිකරණ යාන්ත‍්‍රණයක බලය යටතේ අවශ්‍ය බව. Based on this, websites have carried articles claiming a minimal international involvement in an accountability mechanism. The original English draft does not mean so.

Given below are how the foreign affairs ministry website carries the sixth paragraph in English and Sinhala respectively: