The UN High Commissioner’s Visit And Current Concerns The focus of the recent interview I had with Ceylon Today was supposed to be the forthcoming visit of Navenethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In fact there was a wide range of questions, my full answers to which have been reproduced, since some of what I said had to be edited out for reasons of space. In general though the paper had done a good job, and with regard to the main focus they had omitted hardly anything. Still, it may be useful to reproduce those sections here for the record. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay , is due to arrive in a few weeks. Do you view her arrival as an opportunity for the government or a signal of caution to the government? I think this could be a great opportunity for the government but some elements in it may treat it as something to worry about, which could have unfortunate consequences. The High Commissioner and the UN are still pushing for SL to investigate alleged war crimes that occurred during the latter stages of the armed conflict and address issues of accountability in relation to the armed forces and their conduct. Do you think this is going to be a key message of Pillay to the Government? This element, which has been grossly exaggerated, will come up but I believe there are more important things which she will concentrate on. The Government has obviously not been able to convince the international community of its genuine commitment to addressing accountability issues even four years after the conflict. Why has the government been ineffective in doing so? The government has been ineffective because it panicked over what it saw, correctly, as unfair treatment. Instead of dealing swiftly with the very minor charges about which there was prima facie evidence, it developed a discourse which saw all charges as traitorous, rather than false. The rot set in with the manner in which it responded to Sarath Fonseka’s charges, which could have been refuted through his own very different words some months earlier. After that it became difficult to deal properly with the residual charges – such as those noted in the government’s own LLRC report – since some elements in government feared that Sarath Fonseka and his supporters, in the forces and outside, including those who had supported the government against him, would cry treachery themselves. This is a simplistic fear, because such support is minuscule, but the government’s agenda in this regard is being set by those who profit by panic. Do you think the Foreign Ministry has been ineffective in projecting an accurate and positive picture of the progress Sri Lanka has made after the war to the diplomatic community? Totally. Read more: https://colombotelegraph/index.php/the-un-high-commissioners-visit-and-current-concerns/
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:51:58 +0000
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