Of the 13 Asian countries in the UN Human Rights Council, only the Republic of Korea voted in support of the US-sponsored resolution calling for an investigation by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on accountability issues during Sri Lanka’s war between 2002 and 2009, External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris noted on Friday.
Peiris stressed that what had happened was not at all helpful, making a difficult situation more difficult. But that’s not going to stop Sri Lanka from doing the right thing because of arm twisting.
``Of the 36 countries co-sponsoring the resolution, 31 were from Europe and two from North America. Australia and New Zealand, though invited to co-sponsor, declined,’’ Peiris said. ``Of the 13 African countries in UNHRC, only four voted in favour. Of the 13 European countries in the Council, only the Russian Federation voted against.’’
Peiris also said that the degree of pressure that had been exerted, particularly by the US and the UK, in drumming up support for the US resolution was ``unbelievable.’’ The voting pattern had very little to do with the Sri Lanka situation and was all about bilateral relations. ``It was horrendously and obviously politicized.’’
On the plus side, countries like India and Japan had abstained. Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council had been supportive with Saudi Arabia and the UAE voting against and Kuwait abstaining.
There had been compelling objection to the inclusion of paragraph 10, the crux of the resolution, and the decision to press the matter to a vote proved correct. India and Indonesia joined those who wanted Para 10 out with the voting 23 for and 14 against with 10 abstentions. Thus the `nays’ plus the abstentions was ahead of the `ayes.’
Asked what Sri Lanka would do if investigators want to come here for their work, the minister said ``we’ll react when the time comes.’’
All this could have been resolved very easily if we were willing to have an inquiry ``that would yield the result they desire,’’ the minister said. He stressed that the way India voted meant a lot to us. ``They had the courage of their convictions. We appreciate that.’’
Peiris described the resolution as ``absolutely obnoxious from several points of view’’ with implications going far beyond the Sri Lanka situation. The UN Human Rights Commissioner has been authorized to carry out an investigation into a country which had never been the case before.
The original draft resolution called for an investigation to be ``led’’ by Navi Pillay’s office. But later the word ``led’’ was dropped the high commissioner had been mandated to investigate.
There was no budget in UNHRC for such an investigation and, as pointed out by Pakistan, if the money for this purpose was coming from those who were sponsoring the resolution, it would be ``tainted.’’
``It’s very unhealthy,’’ Peiris said. ``Lot of the money comes from the people who are pursuing us.’’
(The Council was told that allocations from the existing budget would be requested to fund the exercise which is estimated to cost well over a million US dollars.)
The minister accused Pillay of already having made up her mind and without any compunction said as much for all the world to hear.
Within weeks of the war ending there had been strident calls for international investigations which had been repeated at regular intervals. It had been pointed out to Pillay that she was on the record saying that Sri Lanka had acted ``under the guise of terrorism’’. She had first said she couldn’t have said that but when confronted with her own statement had indicated that she had been in New York when that statement was issued.
When the high commissioner’s report last year was circulated, Sri Lanka’s comments were included as part of the document. This year, Pillay’s office had refused to follow this procedure and when the precedent was point out, had said that what happened last year was a mistake.
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