Opinion:

Navi Pillay has last dig at Sri Lanka

by K.M.H.C.B. Kulatunga

There is a Sinhala saying that the devil who leaves would break even the pot when he leaves (Yana yaka korahath bindagena yanawa). This is exactly what the outgoing United Nations Human Rights Chief Navi Pillai seems to be doing before she retires.

It was an open secret how Pillay acted in a highly controversial manner during Sri Lanka's relentless battle against terrorism. Thereafter, she was instrumental in using the UN Human Rights Council to level baseless war crimes allegations against Sri Lanka's valiant Security Forces.

Pillay was fast asleep when the LTTE terrorists were playing hell, inflicting untold misery on 21 million people in Sri Lanka subjecting them to large-scale bomb explosions.

Thousands of people, including women and children fell unfortunate victims to the massive bomb blasts. The Tigers held people in the North and the East as a human shield against the advancing Security Forces during the battle against terror. Neither Pillay or any of the ‘godfathers’ of human rights ever uttered a word of comfort on behalf those hapless civilians.

Statements

Pillay's conduct during and after the humanitarian operation was highly questionable. Her ethnic connection to Tamils is known world over and she used her high office to pamper the LTTE terrorists by taking Sri Lanka and its Security Forces to task. She issued a plethora of statements against Sri Lanka and its Security Forces during the humanitarian battle.

Now that Pillay is packing her baggage to retire from Geneva-based UNHRC, she would have thought that she should have her last dig at Sri Lanka. It is crystal clear that Pillay is using all her might to project a gloomy picture of Sri Lanka to her successor and the international community before she retires.

Sri Lanka has exposed the biased nature adopted by the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for her last ditch efforts to influence OHCHR investigation process against Sri Lanka.

In an e-mail interview to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Pillay has said, “The United Nations can conduct an effective investigation into reports of war crimes in Sri Lanka without visiting the country.”

Exposed

Ministry of External Affairs officials has slammed High Commissioner Pillay for making such a high-handed statement relating to the investigation on Sri Lanka that has been undertaken by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) following the adoption by a vote of Resolution 25/1 in March 2014. It is a clear interference by Pillay to the panel during the final few weeks in her position.

The External Affairs Ministry, in a statement, has further exposed the High Commissioner who is due to leave office at the end of this month making public pronouncements to the media on an investigation which has commenced only recently is a clear indication of personal bias.

It is evidence of an attempt to influence the investigation process and make it follow a preconceived trajectory. She refers in her statement to a ‘wealth of information outside Sri Lanka’.

The prejudice and lack of objectivity on issues pertaining to Sri Lanka displayed by Pillay in the past are unfortunate.

This is the same wealth of information that she has tended to refer to in the past, justifying it to be from credible sources, although their origins continue to remain undisclosed, and verification has not been facilitated.

Terror

It is deplorable to note that Pillay has desisted from acknowledging verifiable statistics of UN sources. Instead, she has sought to endorse exaggerated claims of former UN sources of spurious credentials by including such uncorroborated statistics in UN documentation. An utterance of this nature from an officer who is expected to maintain the highest standards of objectivity is disappointing.

The prejudice and lack of objectivity on issues pertaining to Sri Lanka displayed by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the past are unfortunate. Just days after Sri Lanka's Security Forces successfully accomplished the world's largest human rescue mission by liberating nearly 300,000 Northern civilians from the clutches of the LTTE terror, Pillay formally called for an international investigation into events in Sri Lanka, adducing a basis and in total disregard of the basic principle of international law, that national remedies must be exhausted before resorting to international mechanisms.

Her claim on May 26, 2009 was a clear indication of the resolute determination with which the High Commissioner set out to pursue her objective of internationalising issues pertaining to Sri Lanka, discounting and disregarding all internal processes even before they could be set in motion.

To advance this agenda, Pillay has repeatedly sought, through her reports and oral presentations to the Council, to confer an official status through the Council and credibility on the Advisory Report to the UN Secretary General. The allegations against the Government in this Report, in flagrant violation of natural justice, were drawn from testimonies shrouded in secrecy in view of the twenty-year confidentiality granted to those who had given testimony.

Credibility

In her statement to the UN Human Rights Council on April 26, 2011, Pillay had referred to Sri Lanka having conducted the issue “under the guise of fighting terrorism” when it has been widely acknowledged that the battle was against a separatist terrorist group proscribed by several countries. Such rhetoric by a senior UN official could place the credibility of the UN system at stake.

Exceeding the provisions of the Programme Budget Implications arising from Resolution 25/1 adopted by the Council, the Office of the High Commissioner has chosen to unilaterally proceed to appoint three “experts” instead of the prescribed two. Moreover, ignoring the provisions of Resolution 25/1 which calls for the OHCHR to undertake a comprehensive investigation “during the period covered by the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission”, i.e. 21st February 2002 to 19th May 2009, the OHCHR has arbitrarily and unilaterally extended the period of its investigation to cover the period up to November 15, 2011.

By comparing in her comments, the situation in Sri Lanka with those elsewhere, that too situations of emergency, Pillay attempts to create a distorted impression of the position in Sri Lanka. Ignoring completely, the socio-economic and infrastructural developments that have taken place since the end of terrorism, the UNHRC chief continues to invite the attention of the international community to Sri Lanka where there is no human rights or humanitarian emergency which merits such consideration, intrusive action or relentless pursuit.

Stability

Sri Lanka has consistently engaged with the United Nations system including the UN Human Rights Council, Treaty Bodies, Special Procedures and the wider international community in a spirit of goodwill and cooperation. The OHCHR should seek to work with Sri Lanka in a cooperative, collaborative, constructive and transparent manner to further strengthen the State’s capacity to promote and protect human rights, in accordance with its mandate.

Instead, Pillay pays scant regard to the ongoing delicate process of reconciliation in Sri Lanka. Ignoring the cultural sensitivities and value systems of local populations, she advocates retributive justice and coercive processes “as an avenue to achieve lasting peace and reconciliation” which in fact would only serve to destabilise the intricate balance of the process of national reconciliation and militate against stability and peace in the country.

We strongly believe that Pillay's successor as the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, would be guided at all times by the principles of objectivity, impartiality, non-selectivity and equal treatment while respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity and domestic jurisdiction of Statesin carrying out his mandate and in guiding the work of the OHCHR. The Government of Sri Lanka will continue to engage constructively with the OHCHR.

Pillay has often cared more for human rights of LTTE terrorists killed in action than the civilians killed by the Tigers. Her team has always shown an undue worry on human rights of LTTE cadres, clad in civil attire.

Once such terrorist abandon his weapon during battle, Pillay's team considered them as civilians killed or injured in action. Knowing Pillay's theory well, most of the LTTE cadres had not been in their uniform during strategic confrontations with the Security Forces.

Pressure

As External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris had quite rightly pointed out at the 21st ASEAN Foreign Ministers Regional Forum in Nai Pyi Taw, Myanmar recently, fighting terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, Sri Lanka has always believed in the need for its elimination in its entirety, given that it has fundamentally impeded progress in large swathes of the globe.

It is ironic, however, that Sri Lanka, having eliminated terrorism for the benefit not only of the people of our country but a significantly wider region, is today having to contend with immense pressure exerted primarily through the use of human rights as a political tool.

There are several priority areas - counter terrorism, maritime security, support for disaster relief as well as non-proliferation and disarmament.

Nations need to rally in solidarity with those directly affected by the scourge of terrorism and extend their fullest co-operation for its eradication, and ensure equal treatment of all countries in the international arena.

Any form of selectivity will lead to cynicism. Countries and their people's possess a tapestry of history, culture, traditions and values which date back many centuries. Sri Lanka, having nurtured representative democracy for a long period in Asia, attaches great importance to reconciliation.

Having based our progress on this principle, we as a nation have entered a new and dynamic era. Our consistent emphasis has been on the value of a home grown solution that Sri Lanka has always advocated.

But the international community should allow Sri Lanka to make its own advancement without any outside interference.