Minister thrilled with success at UN  

Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe who returned to the island on Friday after attending the special session on UN Human Rights Council, says Sri Lanka must do everything possible to inform the 12 countries that voted against it, the actual situation of that happens here. Speaking to The Nation the minister said that the government should now go in for an intensified strategy of putting in place a better dialogue and a better information sharing action plan with these countries so that they would be in possession with our side of the story as well when they had to take positions in forums such as the Human Rights Council and in New York, either in the security council or the UN general assembly and hence would be able to take a more balanced position. He said the country has failed to do what the LTTE has successfully managed to do in carrying out powerful lobby abroad. “This is something that the foreign ministry must have looked into before others pointed their fingers at us,” he added

Following are excerpts:
Q: How successful was your mission at the UN Human Rights Council session?
A: I think it was an extremely successful one. No one expected such a decisive vote in favour of Sri Lanka. When we started first in Geneva, the western groups had 17 sponsors for the special session and for our resolution we had also 17 supporting us. So it was on a fifty-fifty footing that we started. But then as we started engaging our delegation, our support base started growing and finally we had a situation of considerable support. Also this was brought about by the understanding that supporting Sri Lanka was also in the interest of many other countries. And also it became a principal stance that many delegations took up especially in reference to the sovereignty of countries and non interference in domestic affairs of countries, which was a key clause incorporated in our resolution. So the final message that all these countries who supported our resolution sent to the rest of the world and especially the UN was that here was a country which had successfully eradicated terrorism after 30 years and liberated 250 000 people from the clutches of terrorism and that this success should be acknowledged and that what the international community and the UN should be doing is not going back to the past and asking for international probes and regular reporting of the Sri Lankan situation by the high commissioners’ office but the international community should be supporting Sri Lanka in meeting the challenges that it has to meet in looking after these 250,000 liberated civilians and resettling them in their own homes in the shortest possible time.

Q: A 12 UN member countries have, however, voted against Sri Lanka. What was their major grouse against Sri Lanka?
A: These countries brought forth nine amendments to our resolutions and they were hopeful of diluting our resolutions by getting these amendments in. But what the Council decided was that Sri Lanka and the other 17 co-sponsors had been quite flexible in accommodating many changes to the original resolution and that these nine amendments cannot be accommodated and hence it should not even be discussed in the council. This decision was endorsed by a vote where the majority of the Council voted in favour. For instance, there was an amendment which was trying to replace the reference to sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs which Sri Lanka and her co-sponsors were definitely not willing to change. There was also an amendment which talked about the High Commissioner’s office reporting regularly to the Human Rights Council on Sri Lanka which we naturally objected to, because obviously we did not want to be in the focus of attention of the council having ended a 30 year war successfully and liberated nearly 250,000 civilians. There was also an amendment to bring in the word ‘accountability’ and an ‘international probe’ into what happened during the last stages of the conflict. And Sri Lanka and her co-sponsors felt very strongly that this was not needed. Because the situation in Sri Lanka was essentially an internal matter and that the joint communiqué issued between the President and the UN Secretary General had, in fact, acknowledged the issue of accountability. So these were main areas that the western 12 wanted to bring in and as I mentioned earlier the Council by way of a vote decided that it was not necessary even to discuss these amendments.

Q: What, in your view, was the motive behind the so called ‘Western 12’ not to support Sri Lanka?
A: I can only give the benefit of my thoughts. One has to understand that there are hundreds of thousands of Tamil Diaspora who are now living and working in most of these countries and in recent times we have seen them coming out into the streets openly in support of the LTTE and I assume that they have successfully lobbied these countries to the extent of pushing them to take this course of action against Sri Lanka. I also feel that had we done our job as effectively as what the LTTE did, this kind of understanding of the situation in Sri Lanka may not have occurred. So in other words, we did not do as good a job as what the LTTE did through the Tamil Diaspora in the western capitals.

Q: What is the kind of future relationship that Sri Lanka will have with these member countries?
A: I would also say that we should now go in for an intensified strategy of putting in place a better dialogue and a better information sharing action plan with these countries so that they would be possessed with our side of the story as well when they have to take positions in forums such as the Human Rights Council and in New York, either in the Security Council or the UN General Assembly and hence would be able to take a more balanced position. I also would advocate much better dialogue and relationship between the Foreign Ministry and the embassies and high commissions of these 12 countries which are present in Sir Lanka. Because we have to understand and appreciate that the regular reporting what takes place through these high commissions and embassies to their respective capitals is also information that these capitals use in formulating their respective positions. I don’t want to go into the details of the lapses but certainly there were lapses and shortcomings which, at least, now should be addressed and a better relationship established vis a vis the embassies and high commissions of these powerful countries and the Foreign Ministry, in particular, of our country. In effect, we must put in place a conscious strategy to reach out to them, but making it clear at the same time that our relationship should be based on an understanding and appreciation that whatever we do together in this country should be within a stipulated national framework which the government would obviously make available. I think if this understanding is reached, maximum facilitation can be given without misunderstandings occurring. From our side, we must also understand that some of the countries within these 12 have historical ties with Sri Lanka and have been helping Sri Lanka over a number of years in its development and reconstruction efforts and being the economic powerhouses that they are. I am sure better relationship would be in Sri Lanka’s interest especially at a time when there are many post conflict challenges in the development sphere that Sri Lanka has to face. But, of course, once again I say that we should not surrender our right to determine the eventual direction that Sri Lanka should take for the sake of receiving the obvious benefits that might accrue as a result of a better relationship. These countries also must understand and appreciate that Sri Lanka is not a dictatorship and that it is a democracy with regular free and fair elections, the rule of law being adhered to and as such should be supported in its endeavours to restore democracy and rule of law in the entirety of the country after successful completion of a 30 year terrorist war. We are conscious of a need to apprehend wrong doers and violators of human rights. We are also conscious of the need for a home grown reconciliation process which would be the basis on which bridges are built between the different communities in Sri Lanka. So that we can put behind the past and look towards the future together as a nation. Therefore we should be given time and space to do this.

Q: Human Rights groups including Amnesty International have been calling for an outside inquiry into abuses in Sri Lanka’s war, on the insistence of UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillai. How do you view this?
A: Once again this so called outside inquiry was not acceptable to a clear majority in the Human Rights Council. And that is the message the majority in the Council gave to the world. Sri Lanka also does not see the need for such an outside inquiry. As I mentioned earlier, what is needed now is to start building the bridges that need to be built between different communities in Sri Lanka and the best way to do is by way of a reconciliation process which is something that should be also home grown and rather than importing it. Our ministry is studying this at the moment and we hope to take a lead role in putting in place with the concurrence of the President and the cabinet of ministers such a reconciliation strategy. What is important to Sri Lanka at the moment is to get on with the job of rebuilding the country and thus giving a better life to all its citizens especially those who have suffered as a result of this 30 year war. It is this objective which really should be now supported by the international community and not to turn the clock backwards and ask for probes which might have the effect of sometimes destabilising further our society.

Q: Why has the government taken such a strong stance against such a probe and why is the reluctance?
A: Why has everything got to be internationalised? We have independent legal institution in the country. We have law enforcement agencies in the country. If there are allegations, any citizen can seek the relief of these institutions by way of the laws of the nation. But I want to get back to what I said earlier that the need of the hour is not to go in for further destabilisation in our society. What is needed now is to reconcile and look towards the future. The armed forces had to do what they had to do to eradicate the ruthless terrorist outfit and give a new lease of life within a democratic framework to the citizens. In the process of doing that many thousands of lives had to be sacrificed. That is the constitutional duties of the armed forces of this country. The President has gone on record many times that this was not a war between one ethnic group against the other or the South against the North. It was a fight to restore democracy and the rule of law in the entirety of the country and to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the county. And the job was done. There is also no need for a probe on LTTE actions because everyone knows what the LTTE was also about and now that the LTTE is no more why spend time and resources probing into what they did? We must now go in for the reconciliation strategy and start building a better future thus ensuring that the likes of the LTTE will never be seen in Sri Lanka again. So in the process of the reconciliation strategy we must also address by way of a political process the genuine grievances of the people of this country in terms of their socio economic and cultural expectorations

Q: There is a controversy over the number of civilians killed at the last stages of the war. The confidential UN report said some 20,000 civilians were killed. But the UN Secretary General has said that whatever the casualty figure may be, the casualties in the conflict were unacceptable. What is your observation?
A: The 20,000 figure had been denounced even by the UN as being accurate figure. No one knows really how many civilians were killed because of the complex nature of the conflict. How do you distinguish between the appearance of a LTTE cadre and a civilian? We know that LTTE cadres were not always wearing uniforms. Is anyone talking about how many LTTE cadres have been killed? Of course, we know that on several publicised incidents the LTTE killed quite a number of civilians to achieve their own parochial objectives. We also know that there was no interest as far as the security forces were concerned in killing civilians to achieve the end objective of defeating terrorism because ours was a humanitarian operation to liberate our citizens by defeating terrorism. So to talk about numbers in respect of civilian casualty, it is like walking on thin ice, no one can authoritatively support numbers and therefore it is best not to speculate. Even the UN as at the highest level said publicly that the numbers that they had been using internally cannot be made public because these figures cannot be verified.

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