A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
(Full Story)
Search This Blog
Back to 500BC.
==========================
Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, March 20, 2019
UNHRC Resolution, Guided by India, to Give Breather to Sri Lankan Government
The
Geneva-based body will adopt a new resolution that will give time till
2021 for the Sri Lankan government to fully implement commitments it
made four years ago on transitional justice and accountability.
Ranil Wickremesinghe. Credit: Reuters
New Delhi: India’s
desire to give some breathing space to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe found a sympathetic ear in the international community.
His government is to be granted a further extension of two years to
carry out key pledges on transitional justice and accountability.
Just before the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) session ends
mid-week, the Geneva-based body will adopt by consensus a new resolution
– proposed by the UK, Canada and Germany – that will give time till
2021 for the Sri Lankan government to fully implement commitments it
made four years ago.
Sources said that India had been kept informed “at every stage” about
the drafting of the resolution by the UK. This is the first time that
the US is not taking the lead, since it withdrew from the HRC last year.
This is the first regular session that India will participate as a
member of UNHRC, after a mandatory gap in 2018 of one year following two
consecutive terms.
According to sources, various countries were aware of the very recent
turbulent political history and the fraught ties between President
Maithripala Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.
“It was felt that the government required a break and this was not the
right time to impose any stringent strictures,” said an Indian
government official.
However, some Nordic countries with large Sri Lankan Tamil diasporas,
had tried to introduce stronger language in the text. This was when
India intervened to “remind” the international community about the
current circumstances in Sri Lankan polity, sources noted.
However, officials said that there was largely not much intervention
required, as there was consensus among the international community about
the need to give the government some breathing space. “We didn’t have
to do too much,” said the official.
This will certainly be good news for Wickremesinghe, who has been
embattled domestically, with presidential election due in Sri Lanka
within a year.
This agreement came despite Sri Lanka not having a good record of
meeting its assurances on reconciliation and transitional justice.
According to a Sri Lankan think-tank, Verite Research, Colombo has fully implemented only six out of 36 commitments made by the government in resolution 30/1.
There has been no progress on the creation of a judicial mechanism with
foreign elements, but the Office of Missing Persons was set up last
year in February.
The UN human rights commissioner’s report on Sri Lanka, which will be
discussed on March 20, has acknowledged some of the steps taken by the
government, but continued to be critical about the pace of accountability reforms.
However, with Sri Lanka co-sponsoring the resolution, as it had done
with two previous iterations, officials said that the text would be
adopted without the need for a vote.
After the adoption, India’s statement will include references to the
need to take into account the sentiments of the Tamil population. There
could also be a rare public mention of the full implementation of the
13th amendment that decentralises power to provincial councils. India
had been a key advocate for the 13th amendment, but it has largely been absent from recent statements.
The scenario would have been different if President Sirisena had gone
ahead with his proposal to send a separate delegation on his behalf to
the Palais de Nations in Geneva.
On March 6, Sirisena informed heads of media organisations that he will
be sending a three-member team his behalf, led by former foreign
minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. He also indicated that Sri Lanka will not
co-sponsor the resolution and would instead ask the international
community to abandon plans for investigation into alleged atrocities. “I
want to tell them [the UN] not to pressure us…What I want to tell them
is don’t dig the past and reopen old wounds,” he said.
Observers had felt that Sirisena, who has been unable to convince the
joint opposition to field him as their presidential candidate, had been
hoping to earn some brownie points by advocating a Sinhala nationalist
position against the prosecution of security personnel over alleged
incidents of war crimes during the civil war. Leader of opposition
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been opposed to Sri Lanka co-sponsoring the resolution.
A few hours later on the same day, a two-page joint press release was
issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Government
Information and the Prime Minister’s Office that Sri Lanka would be
co-sponsoring the resolution. In effect, there would have been two
separate delegations from Sri Lanka at UNHRC’s 40th session.
Taking a dig at Sirisena, the press release stated, “The allegations
made against the co- sponsoring of the roll-over resolution by the GOSL
is part of the campaign to mislead the public and gain undue political
advantage.” It also blamed the “infamous constitutional coup of 26th
October, 2018” for the delay in bringing in some of the required
legislation to implement commitments.
After months of estrangement, Sirisena had removed Wickremesinghe and made Rajapaksa as the prime minister in a surprise move last October. Wickremesinghe was restored as prime minister after the Supreme Court deemed the presidential orders to be unconstitutional.
Eventually, Sirisena climbed down after a week. According to the Sri Lankan media, Samarasinghe told President Sirisena that it would be embarrassing to go to Geneva and advocate a position at the UNHRC that was directly opposite to his previous commitments.
In October 2015, UNHRC had agreed to a resolution – co-sponsored by Sri
Lanka and backed by India – that called for a domestic judicial
mechanism with foreign judges and lawyers. With Sirisena defeating
Mahinda Rajapaksa in a shock upset at the January 2015 presidential
elections, the new government in Colombo was basking in the glow of the
international community’s approval.
A year earlier in March 2014,
India had abstained on the resolution that called for an international
probe into human rights violations that occurred in the last stages of
the civil war. In 2013 and 2012, the UPA government – under coalition pressure
– had voted in favour of US-sponsored resolutions that criticised the
Mahinda Rajapaksa government for not taking enough steps to ensure
accountability.
Sources told The Wire that the Sri
Lankan president had also been discretely informed by India and other
members of the international community that if Colombo didn’t co-sponsor
the resolution, it was highly likely than a vote would have been called
on March 21. “If that had happened, then all bets were off,” said a
highly-placed official.