‘Threat needs to be defeated with vigorous engagement’:

UNHRC, a ‘post box’ - Rohitha Bogollagama

by Manjula Fernando

Former Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the UNHRC in Geneva has been made a ‘post box’ to communicate matters to Sri Lanka when there were more pressing global issues which need the attention of the UN Rights Body.

He said that he had never witnessed a country specific resolution being repeated like this at the UNHRC, as if it is a means to channel communiques by individual members, without giving the country concerned sufficient time to implement any action to redeem itself or prove its innocence. He was commenting on the US’s ongoing efforts to move the third resolution against Sri Lanka.

Bogollagama told the Sunday Observer that when the UN Secretary General Banki Moon was in Sri Lanka on May 23, 2009, he visited the key places of the humanitarian operation, and there was an exchange of views prior to releasing a joint statement.

“In the statement, the devotion for accountability was only one line, where Sri Lanka will take steps in terms of accountability.” Bogollagama said the statement did not speak of Sri Lanka committing war crimes.

In fact, by then, the UN would have known that there were crimes against humanity and war crimes if such things had been committed.

At that time they could have insisted that Sri Lanka has to account for war crimes, but there was no such thing.

He said individual countries have now got on to the Human Rights bandwagon including the US in a bid to concoct stories against Sri Lanka and this threat needs to be defeated with constant and vigorous engagement of member states at the UN Human Rights Council.

He said the US resolution not calling for an international investigation was far more dangerous than calling for one now. “It has been built with a lot of intricate, penetrating diplomatic know-how to impose the UNHRC will on Sri Lanka.”

He said had they called for an international probe in plain terms, we could have easily rejected it.