Showdown on key HR issues

The visiting UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour and Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe differed strongly yesterday on the need for the presence of UN monitors in Sri Lanka or the opening of a Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Colombo.

While Ms.Arbour who is the third high profile UN official to visit the country this year insisted at a joint news conference in Colombo that co-operation between the Government and the OHCHR needs to move away from technical support to a more direct presence, the Minister insisted the Government was unwilling to discuss these two issues.

“We have been very clear in our discussions with the High Commissioner that our government’s position is that we are not willing to discuss in any way a UN presence in Sri Lanka for monitoring purposes and neither are we ready to discuss the opening of the OHCHR office in Colombo,” Mr. Samarasinghe said.

Ms.Arbour, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, expressed a different position when addressing the media after winding up her four day visit to Sri Lanka. “It has become apparent that pure technical cooperation cannot address what I consider are human rights challenges that the country faces at this time,” Ms.Arbour said. Her visit took her to Jaffna and gave her an opportunity to meet with family members of victims of extra judicial killings, disappearances and abductions as well as human rights activists.

The diverse views that Ms. Arbour and Mr. Samarasinghe exchanged during the briefing were a clear illustration that there was little common ground between the two even though the Minister insisted there was.

Some of their comments were as follows:

Minister Samarasinghe:
“The High Commissioner is here on the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka. She has come here with the particular objective of working closely with the government. These discussions centered on national institution building, capacity building, and technical co-operation.”

Ms. Arbour: “ I want to make my position very clear. I believe that technical assistance or co-operation is always a good thing. But I don’t believe that it is sufficient at this particular stage in dealing with the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. I hope to continue my efforts to persuade the government that the presence of the OHCHR in Sri Lanka would be a great benefit to the people.”

Minister Samarasinghe: “As much as we believe in globalisation and the need to work with the international community, we have our own constitution, we have our own laws and we are proud of the fact that we have independent national institutions we have put in place. We can get all this assistance from international friends, people such as Madam Arbour can come and go but finally it is we Sri Lankans who have to go that extra mile.”

Ms. Arbour: “A striking discrepancy exists in the perceptions of reality among different sections of the community. There are allegations that are easily dismissed as those told for propaganda purposes and so do not warrant investigation. I have had a lot of experience in creditability assessment and I have found in this country that many allegations, in my view, are certainly credible enough to be investigated.

“I regret that I did not have the opportunity to visit Kilinochchi where I would have liked to convey directly to the LTTE my deep concern about its violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including the recruitment of children, forced recruitment and abduction of adults and political killings.”

Minister Samarasinghe: “We are not after cheap publicity. Why should we send her there and risk her life and let her be used as a propaganda tool by the LTTE. We did not get her here to get a report from her that the LTTE is violating human rights. We already know that.”

Soon after the news conference while Ms.Arbour headed to the Welikada prison to meet Tamil detainees, Mr.Samarasinghe’s Ministry issued a statement addressing some of the issues that Ms.Arbour had raised. It said the Government had already initiated action on several issues raised by Ms.Arbour and mentioned plans to introduce urgently a Witness and Victim Assistance and Protection Act as well as reconstitute the Constitutional Council after Parliament approval was granted to amend the 17th Amendment to the Constitution based on the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee appointed for the purpose.

Earlier the Human Rights Commissioner said the failure to resolve the controversy over the appointment of commissioners to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) had created a crisis of confidence in the HRC both locally and internationally. She warned it may lose its accreditation to the international body governing these institutions due to its failure to systematically conduct public inquiries and issue timely reports.

Ms.Arbour who was in Sri Lanka on an invitation extended to her by President Mahinda Rajapaksa when the two met in Geneva earlier this year, said in her opening remarks, that in the context of the armed conflict and the emergency measures taken against terrorism, the weakness of the rule of law and prevalence of impunity in Sri Lanka were alarming. “While the government pointed to several initiatives it has taken to address these issues, there has yet to be an adequate and credible public accounting for the vast majority of these incidents. In the absence of more vigorous investigations , prosecutions and convictions, it is hard to see how this will come to an end,” she said.

Ms.Arbour also said it would be highly desirable for the government to consider an early ratification of the new International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. She said that in the light of the documented violations of international humanitarian laws, Sri Lanka should also seriously consider joining the 105 countries which had ratified the Rome Treaty creating the International Criminal Court.