International community misled

*Sinister move to divide country

*Deceptive and inconsistent in stance

By Mamnjula FERNANDO

A former international civil servant, an expert on UN affairs said the UN Secretary General (UNSG), Ban ki-Moon has acted in a deceptive manner, misleading the international community including the Non Aligned Movement with regard to the Experts Panel on Sri Lanka.

He questioned whether the 'whole process was part of a sinister plan to divide Sri Lanka similar to the process which disintegrated Yugoslavia in which UN was used as a tool'.

Inconsistent

The senior official accused the Secretary General of being inconsistent with his stance and repeatedly stating one thing in public and doing the opposite later, from the outset since the Experts Panel was mooted mid last year.

A soldier carries an elderly woman during a rescue operation Pic: Rukmal Gamage

Quoting from the UN Charter the senior official said the UNSG had no authority in the first place to appoint an advisory panel on his own to investigate a Sovereign Member of the 192 nation world body.

Chapter XV of the Charter which deals with composition, powers and functions of the Secretariat says under article 97, 'The Secretary General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

He shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organisation'.

Article 98 says 'The Secretary General shall act in that capacity in all meetings of the General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Council, and of the Trusteeship Council and shall perform such other functions as are entrusted to him by these organs'.

The Secretary General therefore, has no authority to take unilateral action in respect of a member country unless he is authorised by the above principal organs or a subsidiary organ such as the Human Rights Council. He argued that by appointing an advisory panel in this manner the Secretary General has violated the UN Charter.

Talking about the deceptive manner in which the Panel of Experts was mooted by the Secretary General he said the explanation given by the Secretary General in appointing the panel of experts which the UNSG avowed, was in accordance with the joint statement issued at the end of Moon's visit to Sri Lanka, itself, was misleading.

The relevant section of the joint statement dated May 24, 2009 which is carried below had no reference to such a panel.

Sri Lanka reiterated its strongest commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights in keeping with international human rights standards and Sri Lanka's international obligations. The Secretary General underlined the importance of an accountability process for addressing violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The Government will take measures to address those grievances.

Commitment

According to that the commitment was on the part of Sri Lanka, not the UN. And Sri Lanka has acted on its commitment by appointing an internal body (The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) led by people of eminence to make recommendations towards a process of reconciliation and accountability based on lessons learnt.

When the NAM expressed its displeasure over the move by UNSG a statement was hurriedly issued by Moon. The Secretary General said "The Panel of Experts being set up by the United Nations as part of an accountability process following the end of the war in Sri Lanka will not infringe on the country's sovereignty and that it was not an investigative or fact finding body.

The senior civil servant questioned as to how the panel of experts, an advisory body which was appointed to advise the Secretary General could have invited and heard submissions lest circulate the entire report which was meant only for SG's own reference if it did not have a mandate to investigate and report.

By making the report public he has contradicted himself. Moon said in New York after appointing the panel Now this panel will report to me directly and not to another body.

The senior official queried why Moon has faltered when it came to war crimes committed on a daily basis by bigger nations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia and now in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen for which NATO countries led by the United States were directly responsible.

Afghan war

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a recent report that the highest number of civilian deaths-close to 2500- in Afghanistan was recorded in 2010. These deaths were largely due to drone attacks by the US and its allies fighting Taliban forces in that country.

For nearly three decades the LTTE has been on a rampage killing at will thousands of civilians including women and children belonging to all communities and destroying billions of rupees worth civilian and military property.

The UN was very well aware of LTTE's child recruitment in to its fighting units in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other relevant international treaties. The international Community including the UN remained passive and silent.

There was merely a light statement, if at all, condemning the acts of terrorism. The statements never attributed the acts to LTTE as if they were carried out by some unknown ghost.

Every time LTTE committed such atrocities the international community found fault with the Government and not with the perpetrator.

The Darusman Report while directing 95 percent of the blame at the Government says that the LTTE too was responsible for violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the last stages of the conflict.

In short blaming the LTTE is only an eyewash, the former civil servant said.

The Secretary General and his Panel members are aware that holding the LTTE responsible for such violations has no effect, as the entire LTTE leadership that used hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians as human shield in the face of advancing Sri Lankan Forces, is now over.

When the LTTE leaders were alive and on a killing spree none of those good Samaritans made a murmur against them, he said.

The UN has a total membership of 192 nations.

Of them only a handful of rich and powerful countries namely the USA and leading members of the European Union, representing around 20 percent of the world population, requested the UN to initiate an international probe over alleged war crimes committed during the last stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

None of the UN member nations from Asia, Africa and Latin America including major international actors such as Russia, China, India and Brazil representing 80 percent of the world population has ever made such a request.

He pointed out that the Report by the so-called Expert Panel has already reopened old wounds instead of healing them. It has given a new lease of life to separatist forces here and abroad.

This is evident by the statement issued by the Tamil National Alliance (ITAK), proxies of the LTTE, which whole-heartedly approved the Report. Rudrakumaran, the current LTTE leader residing in the US, has said that the Report was the first step in the journey towards a separate state of Tamil Eelam.