By Lakshman I.Keerthisinghe –

Lakshman Keerthisinghe

‘The Devil can cite Scripture to serve his purpose.’ Anonymous (Opportunism)

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a UN Agency that works to promote and protect the human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The office was established by the UN General Assembly on 20 December 1993 in the wake of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights. The office is headed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who co-ordinates human rights activities throughout the UN System and supervises the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Switzerland. The current High Commissioner is South African lawyer Navaneetham Pillay whose four-year term began on 1 September 2008. On 24 July 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon nominated her to succeed Louise Arbour as High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United States reportedly resisted her appointment at first, because of her views on abortion and other issues, but eventually dropped its opposition. Her term has since been extended for two more years.

The mandate of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights derives from Articles 1, 13 and 55 of the Charter of the UN the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and General Assembly resolution 48/141 of 20 December 1993, by which the Assembly established the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Article 1 of the UN Charter describes the purposes of the United Nations which are

1.     To maintain international peace and security  to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2.     To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3.     To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights  and forfundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4.     To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Article 2(7) of the UN Charter specifically provides that Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll. Chapter VII deals with action with respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression and the main article: of Chapter VII viz.Article 42 states that

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Most Chapter VII resolutions (1) determine the existence of a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression in accordance with Article 39, and (2) make a decision explicitly under Chapter VII. However, not all resolutions are that explicit, there is disagreement about the Chapter VII status of a small number of resolutions. As a reaction to this ambiguity, a formal definition of Chapter VII resolutions has recently been proposed as:”A Security Council Resolution is considered to be ‘a Chapter VII resolution’ if it makes an explicit determination that the situation under consideration constitutes a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression, and/or explicitly or implicitly states that the Council is acting under Chapter VII in the adoption of some or all operative paragraphs.”

Chapter VII resolutions are very rarely isolated measures. Often the first response to a crisis is a resolution demanding the crisis be ended. This is only later followed by an actual Chapter VII resolution detailing the measures required to secure compliance with the first resolution. Sometimes dozens of resolutions are passed in subsequent years to modify and extend the mandate of the first Chapter VII resolution as the situation evolves.

With the foregoing analysis it is evident that as there does not exist any situation causing any threat to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression in Sri Lanka such resolutions may not affect Sri Lanka.Then again one wonders whether the recent attempted upheavals in ‘Arab Spring’ style such as the halal issue causing racial disharmony were indeed plots to undermine the sovereignty of our nation and permit international intervention and aggression, which could destroy our motherland as seen in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and presently Syria.

The duplicitous character of the actions taken by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is evident by its failure to institute investigations into the recent infamous drone attacks conducted by the US murdering thousands of persons including innocent women and children some even younger than the son of Prabhakaran, now shown on the fabricated Channel 4 videos as it was done earlier to damage the image of our nation in the eyes of the international community. Speaking of drone attacks the US website ‘Policymic’ reported thus:

‘Yet, something about this seems entirely hypocritical; we as Americans largely ignore when our own government, in countries around the world, murders innocent children but when an American child dies, our media and our nation can focus on nothing else. Meanwhile, U.S. drones are killing children and terrorizing families abroad. Earlier this year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that 176 children have been murdered in Pakistan alone. And along with drone attacks, an average  of 4.8 children are killed per day in Afghanistan where earlier this year, a U.S. sergeant is reported to have killed 9 children. Will these murders be deemed worthy of our thoughts and prayers, or even our news headlines?

The question to be posed to Nai Pillay is did those innocent children  including the children of Bin Laden deserve to die like dogs at the hands of the imperialist US shedding crocodile tears at the decimation of the LTTE which committed atrocities on the  Sri Lankan people of all races for over three decades. In Pillay’s own words published in the Sunday Times of 24th February 2012 at p 14 in an email interview she stated:  ‘I welcome the fact that decades of terrorism by the LTTE have come to an end. They were indeed a very brutal organization.’ Pillay refuses to travel to Sri Lanka and observe for herself the development of the North and East and the rehabilitation of thousands of former LTTE Cadres, who have returned to leading normal lives as our own brothers and sisters.

Although there may be shortcomings in the present regime the Sri Lankan people should be grateful to the President and the armed forces which ushered in peace and tranquility to our people after three decades of anguish. Where was the UN when the LTTE massacred Muslims praying in a Mosque, Buddhist priests engaged in religious activities, innocent civilians travelling in public transport, blasting a pregnant Tamil woman as a suicide bomber used to attack the former Army Commander.?What about the rights of the unborn helpless child in the womb of that indoctrinated suicide bomber? Did they ever raise their voice at least to condemn such acts let alone assist Sri Lanka to come out of that debacle? The intention of the UN in harassing Sri Lanka on alleged human rights violations appears to be to threaten a regime that is not amenable to toe the line dictated by the US and other European countries.

It is a shame that some Sri Lankans are attempting to tarnish the image of their own motherland to serve petty political agendas. Our people should unite and resolve our problems within our beautiful motherland rather than striving to invite foreign intervention and external aggression which could destroy our motherland in which we were all born and bred. The UN should terminate its duplicitous attitude in bowing to super powers by ignoring their blatant violations of human rights and harassing developing nations for alleged human rights violations which is history now, If one were to dig up historical facts about human rights violations from the time of Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and such dictators Navi Pillay will not be able to rest for a single second of her remaining period of existence on earth.