COLOMBO - The war of words between the Sri Lankan government and the United
Nations has begun again, this time over a plan to create an expert panel on the
island's human-rights record.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon wants to appoint this panel, but Sri Lankan
President Mahinda Rajapaksa says it is "unwarranted and uncalled for".
This week's posturing is the latest episode in a saga that began about two
years ago when the UN, especially the UN Human Rights Council, raised concerns
over the conduct of the final phase of Sri Lanka's civil war.
The Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, who
waged war for decades to set up an independent homeland for the Tamil minority,
in May 2009. The war cost this South Asian island nation more than 70,000
lives.
Sri Lanka reacted testily to international criticism of the conduct of the war.
The Rajapaksa government has staved off action against it at the Human Rights
Council and at the UN Security Council, with assistance from friendly countries
like India and China.
Just two weeks ago, Sri Lanka crossed swords with the British government after
its Foreign Secretary David Miliband attended a meeting of a Tamil group in
London that it considers a front for the Tigers.
"There is a pervasive sense in the West especially that there are rights
violations happening here," Terrence Purasinghe, senior lecturer at the Sri
Jayawardenepura University in Colombo, told Inter Press Service (IPS).
"It makes good press when the government takes on the UN and United Kingdom
over these allegations," he added. "But for these charges to go away, the
government has to convince the West that it has dealt with these allegations.
Till that is done, these charges will keep coming."
"The panel [of experts] can only advise. Any decision will have to be ratified
by the Security Council and there countries like India and China will back Sri
Lanka," Anurudha Pradeep, another lecturer at the same university, pointed out.
"Some of these allegations stem from the time of the war," he said, adding that
international concerns will not go away easily. "Now the war is over, and the
government must make sure that there is no chance that similar allegations can
be made during times of peace."
On March 5, Ban's office announced that the UN secretary general had a
telephone discussion with Rajapaksa informing him about the expert panel.
But the contents of the conversation appeared different when Rajapaksa's office
released its own statement. The telephone call was subsequent to a letter
written by Ban and the panel was not welcome at all, it said.
"He [Rajapaksa] 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 catastrophes and causing the deaths
of large numbers of civilians due to military action," his office said.
Sri Lanka has always viewed critical action and comments from the UN as being
prompted by an anti-Sri Lanka lobby of non-governmental organizations and those
backing the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Rajapaksa had
alluded to this in his conversation with Ban.
"The secretary general was told that the allegations about Sri Lanka were
motivated by misrepresentations by apologists of the LTTE, and by some
non-government organizations that due to being so misguided or otherwise, were
clearly working on an agenda that was directed against Sri Lanka," Rajapaksa's
office said.
Two days later, Ban himself said that he was going ahead with appointing the
panel despite Rajapaksa's opposition. He told reporters that he was concerned
about lack of progress in Sri Lanka over key issues including reconciliation,
accountability and issues relating to the internally displaced population.
More than 100,000 displaced people remain in welfare camps in areas that used
to be held by the Tigers. They were among the more than 280,000 civilians who
fled in the northern Vanni region after the fighting wound down in May 2009.
The other 150,000 have since returned to their home villages.
"I had a frank and honest exchange of views with President Rajapaksa, Thursday
night, last week, over issues that were of concern to both of us. This included
moving forward on political reconciliation, further movement on the condition
of internally displaced persons, and the establishment of an accountability
process," Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
He indicated that there could more actions from the world body on Sri Lanka. "I
made clear to President Rajapaksa that I intend to move forward on a Group of
Experts which will advise me on setting the broad parameters and standards on
the way ahead on establishing accountability."
For his part, Rajapaksa warned of a hardening stance if Ban went ahead with the
panel. "President Rajapaksa reiterated to the UNSG [UN secretary general] that
any appointment of such a panel as intended would compel Sri Lanka to take
necessary and appropriate action in that regard," his office said.
The Rajapaksa government has never been loath to take on international
powerhouses.
After the government berated the British government for Miliband's address at
the Global Tamil Forum, Minister G L Peiris said: "Miliband was actively
supporting the regrouping of the Tigers and their networks."
This is not the first time that the Rajapaksa government has resisted the
setting up of advisory panels.
It rejected an investigation panel set by the European Union last year to
investigate allegations of rights abuses. In February, the EU announced that it
was suspending concessionary tariff regulations on imports from Sri Lanka based
on the findings of the investigation.
Domestically, there is a very real political dimension to this diplomatic
sparring.
The Rajapaksa government has always identified itself with nationalistic
support groups that do not take lightly to what they see as foreign
interference. It has suggested that the recent spike of international concern
over rights violations in Sri Lanka was linked to parliamentary elections set
for April 9.
"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," Rajapaksa told Ban during their
phone conversation, according to his office.
Looking suspiciously at the calls to form the panel of experts, many backers of
the Rajapaksa administration - especially its hard-line stance against possible
foreign involvement - view it as an attempt to influence the election.
"This is all part and parcel of an international conspiracy," Gunadasa
Amerasekera of the National Patriotic Movement told IPS. "First we had these
calls for an international investigation, then the former army commander Sarath
Fonseka made claims of war crimes, and now this."
Fonseka, who is now in military custody, lost to Rajapaksa at the January
presidential election. The Rajapaksa camp has charged that his campaign was
funded by foreign sources.
"This is all a big effort to bring the president and the defense secretary to
an international war crimes tribunal, and we will not allow that," Amerasekera
added.
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