28 March, 2024

Blog

What Will Be Said & Not Said By Mangala In The UN HRC

By S. V. Kirubaharan

S. V. Kirubaharan

S. V. Kirubaharan

The Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, Mangala Samaraweera, is scheduled to speak on the opening day of the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council – UN HRC, in Geneva, on 02 March 2015.

With my experience of Sri Lanka and the UN Human Rights forums, I predict that the following will be said. Many facts and realities will not be disclosed to this august forum.

1 –       Mangala Samaraweera will inform the UN HRC that a new President has been elected by all communities – Singhalese, Tamil and Muslims. He will also say that the Tamils’ leading political party, the Tamil National Alliance – TNA, fully supported the new President.

But he will not mention that the new President won the election mainly because of votes from the North and Eastern Provinces which are predominantly inhabited by Tamils.

2 –       He will not disclose to the UN HRC that this is an interim government. Also he will not say that the present government is waiting for a parliamentary election to be held.

It looks likely that the Parliamentary election which was expected to be held in April will be postponed indefinitely.

3 –       He will hint that this interim government, like the previous government, wants only a domestic investigation and will oppose an international investigation into war crimes.

Minister of External Affairs Mangala Samaraweera and President's External Affairs advisor Jayantha Dhanapala

Minister of External Affairs Mangala Samaraweera and President’s External Affairs advisor Jayantha Dhanapala

4 –       He will not say how many world leaders they have lobbied to pressurise the UN Human Rights Commissioner and members of the Human Rights Council, to postpone the investigation report which was due to be released on 25th March during the 28th session.

5 –       He will certainly make much of the ‘Witness protection bill’.

But he will not disclose to the HRC that even though this bill has been passed, witnesses will only come forward to give evidence to an international inquiry, not a domestic inquiry.

6 –       As he has no information on land forcibly taken by the Sri Lankan security forces in the North and East, he cannot give any statistics on expected return of land to the owners.

7 –       He will not tell the HRC that there are still Internally Displaced People in camps in the North and East, many of whom have been IDPs for decades.

8 –       He will say that freedom of expression for the media is back on track and that the investigation into the killing of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematungw has begun.

But he will say nothing about what they are doing about the killing of Tamil Journalists, Parliamentarians and Human Rights Defenders. Nor about the many arson attacks on the Tamil newspaper Uthayan.

9 –       He will not say how many Ministers in the present 50 to 55-days-old cabinet are unhappy and waiting to resign.

In other words the coalition of the present interim government is on the verge of collapse.

10 –     He will not tell the UN HRC that the new President used his executive powers so far only to re-instate the Chief-Justice and pardon and re-instate an Army Commander as a General. The earlier government had taken revenge on these two.

However the new President is not ready to use his executive powers to do anything to remedy the situation of the people of the North and East – neither regarding their political and civil rights nor their socio-economic cultural rights nor human rights.

In the past, the North and East were merged as the North East Province by President JR Jayewardene, under the 13th Amendment, using Presidential executive powers.

Without further ado, the current president could do the same – merge the North and east – thus taking the step needed towards fulfilling Tamils’ political rights.

11 –     He may say that the government is taking action on corruption which was ignored by the earlier government. But he will not indicate that this action concerns only the South.

Whereas corrupt actions of their former allies – Douglas Devananda, Karuna alias Muralitharan and Pillyan in the North and East are ignored by this interim government.

12 –     He will not inform the UN HRC that their 100-days-programme – abolition of the executive presidency, calling for a parliamentary election and many other issues, is not going to take place as scheduled.

It looks as if this 100-days-programme may not take place even within 1000 days.

13 –     Finally he will never ever disclose to the UN HRC that he and many other ministers in the present interim government were with the earlier government.

They were ardent supporters of all affairs of the earlier government.

It is to be noted that the people who talk about democracy in the present interim government, including former Chief-justice Sarath N Silva were the very people who made the pathway for Rajapaksa’s dictatorial regime.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Latest comments

  • 5
    11

    I presume that your job is to follow VVIPs of Sri Lanka and write a report.

    There is not much different between you and Dayan.

    Both are on the same the boat.

    Will see whether your prediction comes right

    • 3
      0

      Jeyasinghe

      “There is not much different between you and Dayan. Both are on the same the boat.”

      Both share the same DNA.

  • 5
    6

    Well done.

    We need you. Let them take your challenge.

  • 2
    6

    This is a devil

  • 4
    5

    Of course Mr.Kirupaharan, Samaraweera is going to say anything and everything at the UN all lies to escape from the truth and against the submission of the UNHRC report. Will he say that his government is going to appoint Sarath Fonseka or Gothabaya as the leader of the internal probe team. What I am concerned at the moment is the occupation of the Armed forces in Vali-North refusing to allow the owners to resettle in their lands. There is a vast amount land grabbed by the Army which they do not need except to colonise the Sinhalese. The demography of Valigamam will be systematically changed which the Tamil leaders are not concerned about. This is a very critical moment and an important issue as the military is little by little establishing their hold on these lands by putting up permanent buildings and surfacing the lands by removing all the boundaries.

  • 4
    2

    Mr. Kirubaharan,

    Mangala Samaraweera will obviously state GoSL’s position when he addresses the UN HR Council and the more compelling question to ask is how sincere is the GoSL in implementing the pledges it makes? My personal take is that the new government is sincere in constructive engagement with key stakeholders, including the UNHRC. Their biggest challenge though would be navigating through the choppy political waters and bringing about a consensus to implement the pledges it makes.

    One more point, it would be refreshing to see you also call to account, non-state actors involved in human rights abuses, including the LTTE. Any particular reason why you are so selective in identifying perpetrators of human rights violations in Sri Lanka?

  • 1
    4

    “It is to be noted that the people who talk about democracy in the present interim government, including former Chief-justice Sarath N Silva were the very people who made the pathway for Rajapaksa’s dictatorial regime.”

    What a gem of a sentenceS In SillyLanka, talk is cheap and you don’t need to pay for it. So, SillyLankans only talk the talk.

  • 2
    4

    UNHRC is so confused in Lankae’s matters. They said they made mistake in their their internal investigation report and that will not happen any more.

    THEY HAVE DONE THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN BY TEMPORARILY CANCELING THE REPORT FROM SUBMITTING.

    UN has been buying time saying Lankave has a democratically elected government. Now UN is the one messing the democratically election in Lankave. If this attempt fails, anti-west force will come to power even much stronger than earlier.

  • 8
    2

    So much is being written about this UNHCR meeting and it’s report. This will only dig into the past and make the communities (Singhalese and Tamil)drift further apart.
    We should work towards bringing the communities together and look into the future.
    Thamilan

    • 1
      2

      Tamil Coward
      Not all Singalese are racist but the people between both communities are the dangerous elements.
      Hope you are not one of that.
      If you are a reall tamil look at history of Ceylon or Srilanka.
      Do you expect Tamils to live as Slaves in this Island.
      Don’t write hypocritical comments.

    • 2
      2

      Thamilan

      “We should work towards bringing the communities together and look into the future.”

      Of course we should, by setting up Truth and Reconciliation commission to independently unearth truth. Without truth no justice would be served to the victims. No justice no reconciliation.

      Remember investigation should cover the period from 5th April 1971 to date.

  • 1
    1

    Government should denote this day in Public Sri Lanka calendar and mark it specially as a public holiday. So we can celebrate it annually.

    What ever he ll say Big 5 Guys of UN ll do what ever they do like.

    Who ll support us this year ?. We don’t have China as in MR days. May be China ll be an absentee like japan last year if it’s a resolution. I have read Indians with Russians. So ll UK, USA, France listen to India on be half of us ?. And Russians with Chinese due to Ukraine Crisis. Russians ll be an absentee too as Russians seems to be more interested in China than India.

    Long live majority peace lovers in Sri Lanka!

  • 0
    2

    Kirubaharan has read the mind of Samaraweera correctly.
    Samaraweera will have to bluff his way through at Geneva.
    Many human rights activists will be watching.
    He will hope to bluff about the “domestic mechanism” to inquire about what the UN HR Commissioner has already collected information on, but would face searching questions about it.

  • 1
    2

    Kirubaharan:

    Just stop bickering.

    Even if USA harasses Sri lanka both the CHINA and Russia have promised to protect Sri Lanka.

  • 3
    0

    Thamilan,
    Bringing communities together and looking into the future is not in the plans for people like Mr. Kirubaharan. Bringing communities together will not help the grand plan of a separate state.
    As per the NPC resolution, if the Tamil community wants an investigation of Genocide from 1948, then the Tamil political leadership along with the Government of India will also need to take responsibility. No one in the NPC talks about any of these players. Even the Tamil diaspora, which have become human rights champions after the conclusion of the war, never cared about any violations as long as they thought they were winning.
    I would really like to see the NPC pass a resolution against illegal fishing by the Indians in SL waters. Of course, we all know that will NEVER happen. So, this is all about theatrics and hypocrisy than anything else.

  • 2
    2

    What Will Be Said & Not Said By Mangala In The UNHRC:

    The same old rhetoric that nothing happened at Nanthikadal

    1)We have our 4 Star General to State the case for the conduct of our beloved armed forces.
    2)We have further support from a war vetran KAUNA to back our case.
    3) We have an excellent internal mechanism to hide the truth.
    4) The Mjority of our people will not tolerate oustide intereference.

    We have a Kingdom ( Animal) of 2500 year civilisation which is still in the primitive stages but evolving along the lines of Darwins theory of evolution.

    MONKEY to MANKIND.

    Where Gotha Basil Wimal and the rest are jumping from Tree to Tree to evade captivity.

  • 1
    2

    Mr. Kirupaharan, instead of writing what’s going to be said at the UNHCR, it is better for you to write to the TNA and tell them to pull back all their support for this government.This deadly mistake was made by the TNA. I am sure no Tamil would expect, that Mangala Samaraweera is going to tell the truth at the UNHCR meeting.

  • 2
    1

    Mr Kirupaharan you have been trailing this diplomatic circle far too long and still you have not understood the basic manner how these people (diplomats) work. Yes they will tell the UNHRC what it wants to hear, but UNHRC also has its sleuths who does the ground work for these sessions. The big powers will concur and put out a statement, that either suits or in disagreement with Sri Lanka. You know that Tamil diaspora including you, has its own system of discrediting Sri Lanka whatever the government implements , so why should the ordinary person in Sri Lanka unnecessarily worry, or take you serious.

  • 2
    2

    Why on earth should North and East be merged? Absolutely no reason, unless you want to split the country into a mega area for Tamil rule only and the rest of the provinces to remain for multiethnic rule! Already the North and East could be having a large population of Indian Tamils illegally brought in by the LTTE during the 30 year conflict, which could be a reason why,Sinhala and Muslim IDPs are still not given back the properties thy were evicted from.
    Treat all citizens equally Mr Kirubaharan.

  • 2
    2

    cant we send this man instead of Mangala?

Leave A Comment

Comments should not exceed 200 words. Embedding external links and writing in capital letters are discouraged. Commenting is automatically disabled after 5 days and approval may take up to 24 hours. Please read our Comments Policy for further details. Your email address will not be published.