Sri
Lanka Perspectives: February 2019
Col R Hariharan | 28-2-2019 | Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, March 2019
| www.security-risks.com |
Getting ready for the UNHRC session
President Maithripala Sirisena is reported to be seriously
examining the implications of withdrawing from the US-backed UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
resolution Sri Lanka had co-sponsored in September 2015. By co-sponsoring the
resolution, Sri Lanka was committed to set up a tribunal with international
participation to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by the army as
part of its accountability for human rights aberrations during the Eelam War.
The President’s rethink on the resolution comes on the eve of the
40th annual session of the UNHRC being held in Geneva from February
22 to March 25. It will be taking up the
review on Sri Lanka on March 20 when the core group consisting of the UK,
Canada, Germany, Macedonia and Montenegro is expected to urge the Council’s
support for the resolution once again. Though the US is not part of the Core Group
as it had quit the Council, it has continued to work with Sri Lanka government
on the implementation of the UN resolution.
The Core Group on Sri Lanka is expected to present a
resolution on promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri
Lanka, making it more a semantic exercise than a substantive value addition.
The resolution will buy time as will have to buy time as all the four aspects
of transitional justice are still not fully implemented.
President
Sirisena speaking to the Colombo weekly the Sunday Times had said, “I
would wish we can withdraw from it. Discussions are now on over this matter.”
This reflects President Sirisena’s exasperation in handling the consequences of the UNHRC resolution passed
under his watch. He never accepted international involvement in the process to
investigate the war crimes allegations as he considered it a domestic issue.
He had always maintained the army never committed any war crimes
during the Eelam war. This is
understandable as he had served as defence minister in President Rajapaksa
cabinet during the Eelam War. In spite of his reservations, in 2015 President
Sirisena probably for reasons of political and diplomatic expediency went along with foreign minister
Mangala Samaraweera’s suggestion to co-sponsor the diluted US draft resolution.
Moreover, at that point the Presiden probably felt he was
beholden to the US and its allies for their open support that had enabled him
to defeat President Rajapaksa. He probably also saw sponsoring the resolution
would be seen as part of the yahapalana vision,
when he joined hands with the UNP to defeat Rajapaksa’s attempt to stage a
come-back in the August 2015 parliamentary election.
In the final draft of the
2015 resolution, the US had agreed to tone down the requirement for foreign
participation in the tribunal, by not specifying the exact nature of foreign
participation, while retaining it in a domestic mechanism. The revised resolution
was passed as it recognized the serious nature of the allegations as well as
the failure of Sri Lanka to act upon them as required by earlier UNHRC
resolutions.
The final resolution
disappointed many Sri Lankan Tamils and Tamil Nadu political parties as they had
been demanding only international mechanism. They had justifiably little faith
in Sri Lanka’s domestic process, because in the past domestic inquiries into
any human rights aberrations were subjected to heavy political interference. In
spite of this, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) chief Sampanthan accepted the
resolution at that time as he felt only a consensus resolution could make its honest
implementation possible. Moreover, the resolution also addressed the main
issues of accountability and reconciliation. On foreign participation, he was
of the view that involvement of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence
counsel, prosecutors and investigators would give the judicial process much
greater credibility.
But much to the dismay of
those who wanted to usher in a clean government and voted the
Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo to power and to the disappointment of the US and
the EU who had supported their rise, their government never implemented the UN
body’s resolution either in letter or spirit. With President Sirisena breaking
away from Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP coalition we can expect the
resolution to continue to remain in the half way house, as yet another belied
promise.
As the implementation
process is connected to good governance, distrust is a growing in the political
process itself. Growing national solidarity with the demands of the relatives
of missing persons, who have been protesting in Kilinochchi continuously for
over 700 days is a testimony to it.
If President Sirisena
withdraws Sri Lanka’s sponsorship at the UNHRC, it will only reinforce the long
standing belief of among Sri Lankan Tamils that Sri Lankan government never maintain
their promise to deliver equitable justice to minorities. In 2015, India had
supported the revised US draft, though on principle India is always opposed to
the role of foreign judges in internal conflicts.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi had earlier spelled out India’s stand on the issue:“Our position is very
clear. We stand for justice and at the same time we are respectful of the Sri
Lankan sovereignty issues to the extent the Sri Lankan government is
comfortable with the formulation that marries the two.” Even as the UNHRC
discusses the Core Group’s resolution on Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Modi will be
in the thick of the general elections. His party BJP is contesting the
elections in Tamil Nadu in alliance with AIADMK and two other smaller parties.
So India’s stand could be conditioned to some extent on Tamil Nadu political
perspectives on Sri Lanka and UNHRC resolution. However, Sri Lanka Tamils have
lost much of the political traction they had in the past. So India can be
expected to maintain its stand vocalized by PM Modi.
Col R Hariharan,
a retired MI officer, served as the head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace
Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He is associated with the Chennai
Centre for China Studies, South Asia Analysis Group and the International Law
and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info
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