Advisory panel on Lanka unwarranted - Minister Samarasinghe

by Manjula Fernando

Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said the dialogue with the UN was continuing to assert Sri Lanka’s position that an advisory panel to focus on Sri Lanka’s accountability issues, was unwarranted.

The Minister said UN Resident Representative Niel Buhne who returned from a consultation stint at UN headquarters in New York reiterated that the proposed panel will advise the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on a way forward in terms of the commitments spelt out in the joint communique issued at the end of his visit to Sri Lanka in May.

“I don’t think we should over-react. We should just wait and see what unfolds from the Secretary General’s side.”

“We have made it clear to the Secretary General that we don’t see a necessity for a group of experts to probe into accountability issues in Sri Lanka since the Government has already taken meaningful steps towards addressing these concerns,” the Minister said.

Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to UN Dr. Palitha Kohona is currently in touch with Moon’s Chief De Cabinet Vijay Nambiar over the appointment of the expert panel which the UN chief’s spokesperson at the Thursday noon briefing at the UN headquarters has identified as ‘not an investigative body’.

Minister Samarasinghe said a six member committee has been appointed by the President to look into the US State Department report which catalogues a number of incidents during the last stages of the war. That committee is still working and their mandate has been extended till April 5.

“There is an intention on the part of the President to appoint a committee to look into the root causes of the 35-year conflict, so that we will learn from the lessons and prevent a similar situation in future. Then there is also the President’s initiative of looking at reconciliation and development.

I believe he will personally spearhead this process after the elections and the new parliament is put in place. “We believe the communique has not been violated. There was a number of domestic processes that Sri Lanka as a sovereign nation has initiated, and that was what the joint communique called for, he stressed. “We are a sovereign nation and it is incumbent on our part to take whatever steps we think would further stabilise our society and strengthen our resolve.

Asked about the claims that the UN Secretary General’s action would lead to a war crimes probe, the Minister said: “Anyone who talks about war crimes obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about, it is mere speculation, no one has yet been able to substantively say, there had been violations of international humanitarian law.”