Guerilla tactics at the UN?

The Sri Lankan delegation in Geneva has been tripped up by a totally unexpected style of behaviour at the current sessions of the UN Human Rights Council. They have expressed dismay over the action of UN Secretary General Ban ki-moon who, without warning, sent his Panel of Experts Report on Sri Lanka (also known as the Darussman Report) to the President of the UNHRC Laura Dupuy Lasserre and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, apparently without advance notice to Sri Lanka.

The idea behind this move appears to be to have the report taken up for discussion at the UNHRC sessions with a view to having a resolution calling for an international war crimes investigation on Sri Lanka. There has been intense lobbying to this end by pro-LTTE sections of the Tamil diaspora backed by governments of some western countries where these populations wield electoral clout. Ban has said he on his own cannot call for such an inquiry but that an intergovernmental body such as the UNHRC or UN General Assembly could do so.

Navi Pillay: Ganging up against Lanka?

External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris has pointed out the impropriety of seeking to bring this document up for discussion at the UNHRC. The report is not an official document but "simply a document brought out by a panel that was appointed solely to advise the UN Secretary General," he said. "The 'Darusman' panel report on Sri Lanka cannot be taken up for discussion at the UN Human Rights Council sessions, in keeping with UN procedural requirements, because it is not an official document at all," the minister told the Daily News.

Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe who is Sri Lanka's Human Rights envoy in Geneva, has also faulted Human Rights Chief Pillay for departing from established UN procedure by disclosing these moves to certain countries attending the UNHRC sessions, whilst Sri Lanka, the country concerned, remained in the dark. It appears the HRC President Lassere too was unaware of what was afoot until the matter inadvertently came to light. Questioning Pillays impartiality, Samarasinghe addressing the 18th session of the UNHRC that began on Monday in Geneva said "The failure on the part of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to inform the concerned state, Sri Lanka, was fully inappropriate to say the least."

Minister Pieris has described how on Friday (9th), in advance of the commencement of sessions he and Samarasinghe had a luncheon meeting with delegates of 29 member states. Following a presentation on Sri Lanka by Pieris, during a question and answer session the European Union's representative said he had been informed by High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillai that the UNSG's office in New York had decided to send copies of the panel report to both the President of the Human Rights Council and UN Commissioner for Human Rights. This was how the news first reached the ears of the Sri Lankan delegation. By accident. AFP in a report datelined Monday September 12 quotes UNSG spokesman Martin Nesirky as saying the Sri Lankan Government has been informed of the decision, but it is not clear when this was done - it appears to have been after the event.

The question arises as to why the UN Panel report was so surreptitiously dispatched to the UNHRC, and why information had been exchanged about the move between Human Rights chief Pillay and the EU representative (and possibly others) behind Sri Lanka's back, as it were. Was this an instance of a 'ganging up' of some states within the UNHRC against a member state? Clearly there was some deviation from UN procedures that seemed to undermine UNHRC's own principles of transparency and impartiality.

The UNSG's advisory panel report has unfortunately come to be referred to in the media and in common parlance as "a UN Report," which it is not. It has as a result acquired, in the eyes of the uninformed public, a status that is undeserved. The report has been intensely criticised in Sri Lanka for its propagandist and politically motivated bias.

A respected non-governmental research organisation, the Marga Institute in a review faulted the document for being skewed, saying that it appeared to be driven by the objective of preparing the ground for a war crimes inquiry, whilst omitting information that did not fit its agenda.

A previous attempt to have a resolution passed against Sri Lanka was defeated at the UNHRC in 2009, with Sri Lanka's counter resolution being adopted by a vote of 29 to 12. Western powers who pushed for the resolution against Sri Lanka still appear to be smarting from that defeat. The EU and Human Rights chief Navi Pillay have led the attempts to have an inquiry by other means, even after that vote. It's worth recalling what the UN's Indian ambassador Gopinathan Achamkulangare said at that time, referring to Pillay's stance: "It would be extremely unfortunate if the intergovernmental decisions adopted by the Human Rights Council were to be ignored or set aside, and the High Commissioner and/or her office were to misinterpret them or willfully neglect them, or supercede them according to their convenience, or in accordance with the agenda of some states, or unrepresentative or unaccountable organizations, or to pursue their own agendas."

Ban's move to set up his panel of experts was itself criticised because it was not clear from where he derived a mandate to initiate an inquiry. The counter argument at the time was that the panel was set up merely in an advisory capacity, and not an investigative one.

Anti-Gaddafi forces laying a siege to Bani-Walid, blocking food, medicine and other essentials to the civilians of the area -- a war crime being committed under the very nose of the UN. AFP

It appears that the panel's report which was meant for Ban's 'advice,' is now being deployed in some unorthodox ways. Given this history, it is difficult to avoid the impression that recent actions of the UNHRC in relation to Sri Lanka seem to be more in the nature of a witchhunt, than any sincere attempt to assist in the difficult process of restoring peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.

It's of interest to note that while the UNSG panel report falsely accused Sri Lanka of blocking food and medical supplies to the conflict areas during the last stages of the war against the LTTE, in Libya, where the towns of Bani Walid and Sirte have been under siege for the past two weeks, an embargo on food, water and medical supplies appears to be taking place under the nose of the UN without any comment.
While western media have referred to 'acute shortages' (as if they happened incidentally), at least one report quoted a rebel spokesman admitting to a deliberate embargo: "We are trying to make them surrender by cutting water and electricity there," Zawawi said" (Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 1, 2011- AFP).

The rebel forces led by the National Transitional Council (NTC) have the blessings of the UN and western powers that are supporting the assault on Gaddafi's last strongholds with devastating NATO air strikes.

The writer is a senior freelance journalist