Navanetham Pillay's due soon:

Good relations with UN maintained - Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe

By Manjula Fernando

Excerpts of an interview with President's Special Envoy on Human Rights and Minister of Plantation Industries, Mahinda Samarasinghe on the upcoming visit of UN Human Rights, High Commissioner Navanetham Pillay.

Question : The visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanetham Pillay falls next week. When will she be in the country, for how long and where would she be visiting during her stay?

Answer: She is expected to come on August 25 and she will be here for one week, the exact departure dates are not known yet.

I will be meeting her on August 29. My office is not in charge of her program. The logistical arrangements and coordination of her visit will be handled by the Foreign Ministry along with the UN. I presume that she would want to visit as many places as she can and meet as many people during her stay.

I was in charge of the visit of her predecessor, Louise Arbour who came to Sri Lanka during the conflict in 2008, there were no travel restrictions or restrictions on people whom she was to meet during that time.

Ms. Pillay would be facilitated in a similar manner because the whole idea is to show her what we have done, how we have progressed from the time of the end of the conflict. We have a lot to show her in that respect.

As the Minister in-charge of Human Rights, all this time I have been talking about the progress that Sri Lanka has achieved, and now it is our turn to show her what we have done.

Q: Do you expect relations between the High Commissioner's office and the Sri Lankan Government to improve after this much-awaited visit?

A: The fact that she is visiting Sri Lanka itself is a demonstration of the connection that the Government of Sri Lanka and her office have been able to establish. We have always maintained good relations, notwithstanding the three or four visits that I do to Geneva every year.

A senior advisor on human rights from her office is stationed in Colombo for the past so many years. Her visit is part of the ongoing dialogue that we maintain with her office.

The initial invitation by the Government of Sri Lanka to the High Commissioner to undertake a visit was made nearly two years ago.

This has been a long outstanding visit and the fact that it is now taking place, is a thing of mutual benefit.

Q: In June this year the UN Human Rights High Commissioner renewed a call for an international investigation, to ascertain ‘the root causes to Sri Lanka's conflict, what happened in the final days and ensure rights of people to the truth’, as she put it. What is the stance of the Sri Lankan government on this call?

A: We have always maintained very clearly that our position is that an international inquiry is unnecessary and irrelevant because, we have already put in place, our own domestic strategies to walk towards comprehensive reconciliation. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission started its work long before the Secretary General's Darusman advisory panel.

We have always worked to our own timetable, we will continue to do that. The outcome of the LLRC panel is now an action plan. That action plan is being implemented as we speak now. Some 53 recommendations that were not incorporated to the action plan was subsequently incorporated in addition to what was there already.

There have been regular meetings to coordinate and monitor the work. In addition to that there is the National Action Plan on the promotion and protection of Human Rights which I myself coordinate and monitor. A lot is being done and we will continue to do that.

Q: It may be difficult to quantify the results, but how you rate the progress of the implementation of LLRC recommendations?

A: In certain areas, we have done very well. In other areas we are in the process of putting in place necessary steps, to achieve results. What is being done is available on the website, it is a transparent process. On the Human rights Action Plan, we have had nearly 50 meetings so far, where different Ministries and Government agencies coming together and submitting quarterly reports on the progress that has been achieved by each other.

I have just received the last quarter of progress reports. Everyone has taken this objective seriously and they are taking steps to keep the international community informed. It is a transparent process unlike the Darusman report and its implementation.

Even the Budgetary provisions have been made available to the different government institutions, tasked with implementing the recommendations of the LLRC. Hence, the commitment of the Government has been very clear.

Q: What areas of the implementation are you most satisfied with?

A: Soon after the end of the conflict the challenge was to look after the 300,000 IDPs and resettling them. The government has made outstanding progress in this area. The others I am impressed about are demining and rehabilitation and reintegration of nearly 12,000 ex-combatants and 550 child soldiers.

This has been almost completed and successfully too. The massive economic infrastructure, reconstruction and development, has been done by the Government, mostly with its own funding.

We want to showcase all this to the world and the visiting envoy.

Q: Do you think the Weliweriya incident as well as what occurred in Grandpass recently will weigh down Sri Lanka at the forthcoming UN Human Rights Council's 24th sessions in September?

A: Already we see, these incidents being flagged by some of our friends in the international community. These groups will definitely do something to project them at the UNHRC sessions to their advantage and propaganda. As a government we don't condone such action. Those responsible for what happened in Weliweriya will be punished. An inquiry has commenced, hopefully the culprits would be identified and action will be taken.

Q: You said Mrs. Pillay has requested a meeting with you. What would you hope to take up with her. Will her call for an international investigation will transpire at this meeting?

A: Obviously she would take up issues that she has raised in the past and we have to demonstrate what we have done. She will also want to discuss with the interlocutors here what we are prepared to do in terms of the resolutions that have been passed at the Human Rights Council.

There will be substantive discussion to identify those areas that need cooperation since her office is entrusted with providing Sri Lanka technical cooperation.

We have to keep in mind that she has to go back and present a report to the September UNHRC sessions as to what her feed back on Sri Lanka is.

Hopefully her visit will cement a good working relationship between Sri Lanka and the office of the High Commissioner.