“Act in keeping with principles of UN Charter on non-interference”

President Mahinda Rajapaksa Friday told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that his intention to appoint a panel of experts to advice him (i.e. the SG) on Sri Lanka is totally uncalled for and unwarranted.
The UN Secretary General phoned the President to inform him that he would go ahead with the appointment of an experts’ panel on Sri Lanka to advise the world body on “accountability issues” relating to possible human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, his spokesman said Friday.

This is a sequel to a letter written by the UNSG in this regard to President Rajapaksa on February 25. A government media release issued in this regard said: “President Rajapaksa was emphatic on this position. He said it was both unprecedented and unwarranted as no such action had been taken about other states with continuing armed conflicts on a large scale, involving major humanitarian catastrophies and causing the deaths of large numbers of civilians due to military action. The UNSG was told that Sri Lanka had concluded its armed conflict with the most ruthless terrorist organisation in the world, more than nine months ago, and was in the process of working towards strengthening national reconciliation.”

Observers noted that there was hardly a hum from the UN in 2006 when the highly respected Western medical journals documented killing of more than 600,000 Iraqis within two years of the illegal invasion of that country. Similarly, the UN is quite silent on the violation of human rights of those arrested in the fight against “global terror” and incarcerated and tortured in places like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons and whenever civilians are killed by coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan they are not investigated by independent experts, but by the same armies responsible for those killings.

According to the release, the President also said that the implementation of such an intention would certainly be perceived as an interference with the current general election campaign being held countrywide; where the people of the North and of the East who were not free to participate in such elections earlier were being given the opportunity to do so, respecting the highest standards of democracy. President Rajapaksa recalled how interested forces attempted such interference, including by trying to draw in the UN and other bodies, in the recently concluded Presidential Election too, which has been internationally accepted as being peaceful, free and fair.

“The UNSG was told that the allegations about Sri Lanka were motivated misrepresentations by apologists of the LTTE, and by some Non-Governmental Organisations that due to being so misguided or otherwise, were clearly working on agenda that was directed against Sri Lanka. There are also sections of the Western world being increasingly subjected to electoral pressure by the same apologists of the LTTE”, the President said.
“The President informed the UNSG that he had already, as a further measure of reconciliation, appointed a special committee to study and report on the lessons from the conflict situation that prevailed in some parts Sri Lanka.

The President and also drew the attention of the UNSG to the panel of eminent persons already working on the allegations of human rights violations and other charges reported by the US State Department, as well as the action by UN Rapporteur Philip Alston on the much disputed Channel 4 video on Sri Lanka.
“President Rajapaksa reiterated to the UNSG that any appointment of such a panel as intended, would compel Sri Lanka to take necessary and appropriate action in that regard. The President stressed that Sri Lanka looked forward to treatment as per the United Nations Charter that provides for equal treatment to all Members of the United Nations, while respecting the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of States.
“The discussion concluded with the President stating that he would shortly be addressing a letter to the UNSG, further to this telephone discussion,” it said.