{"id":102330,"date":"2013-08-27T08:46:45","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T03:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=102330"},"modified":"2013-09-01T02:53:40","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T21:23:40","slug":"a-brief-open-letter-to-navi-pillay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/a-brief-open-letter-to-navi-pillay\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief Open Letter To Navi Pillay"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amaravathi<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your visit to Sri Lanka, after years of failed efforts by the Sri Lankan Government to insult and intimidate you, is most welcome. Its outcome will be critically important for the future of Sri Lanka \u2013 whether it can\u00a0 evolve as a democracy where universal human rights are observed or\u00a0 whether the present autocratic\u00a0\u00a0 genocidal regime will be further entrenched in power for the indefinite future.<\/p>\n

We are confident that you will act strictly consistent with the responsibilities of your high Office, and not let external\u00a0 pressures deter you from your task, as reportedly was the case during the final months of the war, according to the\u00a0 UN Internal Review of UN Actions in Sri Lanka\u2014called the Petrie report (1)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Navi Pillay<\/p><\/div>\n

To your credit, you were the only high UN official\u00a0 who was prepared to speak the truth about ongoing atrocities and their possible implications as violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, before you were effectively silenced, until the end of the war\u00a0 —when you called for a independent international investigation , explaining your reasons for it, which subsequently available information has amply justified. The Petrie\u00a0 report noted the irony of the\u00a0 \u201cUN\u2019s most senior human rights and humanitarian law official not having a direct role in the UN monitoring or supervision\u00a0 or oversight\u00a0 for UN action, or UN engagement with Security Council\u201d<\/p>\n

The Petrie panel therefore recommended that in future\u00a0 the UN Human rights\u00a0 Commissioner\u00a0 be given an explicit and enhanced oversight role \u201c to coordinate the human rights promotion and protection activities throughout the UN system\u201d as defined in the UN General Assembly resolution of 1993 setting up that Office. The Secretary General has already approved the Petrie recommendations.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka stands out as the only case in recent decades where the UN and the International Community remained not only silent but was complicit in mass atrocities against civilians\u00a0 during the war. They have\u00a0 also failed to hold the Government to account for its failure in over four years to implement its many\u00a0 promises to the UN and UN Human Rights Council in May 2009 on accountability, human rights, democracy, devolution and reconciliation, with dire consequence to all Sri Lankans.<\/p>\n

Madame High Commissioner, you now\u00a0 have\u00a0 the opportunity as well as the moral and legal high ground to help remedy those wrongs.<\/p>\n

You are already well informed on events in Sri Lanka during and after the war. However, we wish that your highest priority during your visit will be to listen first hand to the silenced victims of both the mass atrocities during the war as well as in the years since.<\/p>\n

The impressive new network of transport infrastructure\u00a0 in the war devastated\u00a0 North East is welcome. It is, however, it is important that you find out what is behind that impressive fa\u00e7ade for the war affected people, or\u00a0 whether it is serving\u00a0 mainly\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the Government\u2019s plans for militarization and ethnic cleansing\u00a0 and demographic and cultural change of those areas, and not national reconciliation.<\/p>\n

The truth is that the Sri Lankan Government and its foreign collaborators have never expected to be seriously called to account for their alleged crimes. They believed, and still seem to believe, that they could continue indefinitely to buy time by simply asserting\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that no crimes were committed\u00a0 and , as usual,\u00a0 through promises\u00a0 which they had no intention to implement.<\/p>\n

As recently as this April, Foreign Minister Pieris revealed the Governmment\u2019s\u00a0 true intention\u00a0 when he declared in Parliament that Sri Lanka would never accept the UNHRC resolution of March 2013, and even added\u00a0 a few caustic comments questioning your integrity. More recently however, the Government seems to\u00a0 have decided to charm you with more worthless promises in order to buy more time. We are confident that you will not be persuaded by such blandishments, either by Sri Lanka or by its\u00a0\u00a0 supporters.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0 conclusion ,we would\u00a0 also request that you give particular attention to the following.<\/p>\n

1.Among the\u00a0 information\u00a0 on the mass atrocities\u00a0 during the war that has been publicly available for a number of years\u00a0 are the\u00a0 Channel Four video documentary called \u201c Sri Lanka\u2019s Killing Fields\u201d ,\u00a0 reports of two of your own\u00a0 UN Rapporteurs\u00a0 on Extrajudicial Killings confirming the authenticity of army executions of unarmed prisoners, as well as satellite photos of the conflict areas\u2014all of which support and supplement the credible allegations in the two Un Panel reports.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 Sri Lankan Government has rejected all of them as baseless and even fabricated.<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0 critically important that\u00a0 an objective evaluation of the authenticity and reliability of these sources and their implication to accountability be made under your direction, and be made available to UNHRC to help it in\u00a0 arriving at an informed decision.<\/p>\n

It is particularly unfortunate that there has been no follow up action of the reports of the UN Rapporteurs,\u00a0 especially since the\u00a0 2013\u00a0 UNHRC resolution calls for an additional eight UN Rapporteurs on different aspects of the Sri Lankan situation.<\/p>\n

2. It is astonishing that all the reports on Sri Lankan events\u00a0 ( including the UN Panel reports) have\u00a0 avoided mention of the genocidal pattern of\u00a0 the\u00a0 alleged crimes under international human rights and humanitarian law, even though\u00a0 the stark fact is that the hundreds of thousands of\u00a0 victims\u00a0 in\u00a0 the North East\u00a0 were almost entirely Tamils and the alleged perpetrators were predominantly the almost 100% Sinhala security forces. This has been even more evident since the end of the war, driven by the Government\u2019s\u00a0 commitment to Sri Lanka as a Sinhala Buddhist country.<\/p>\n

We hope that this\u00a0 serious\u00a0 gap will be be addressed in your\u00a0 report to UNHRC.<\/p>\n

3. Two\u00a0 of the most vicious but under reported aspects of the Sri Lankan events, which are also\u00a0 of central\u00a0 relevance to 2.\u00a0 above,\u00a0 are the pervasive use of sexual abuse and rape by Sinhala security forces and their paramilitaries\u00a0 against Tamils, and the extensive use\u00a0 of land appropriations\u00a0 and ethnic cleansing of the North East, under\u00a0 heavy cover of militarization.<\/p>\n

4.Finally,\u00a0 while your visit will help in ascertaining the broad contours of the current situation, only an independent international investigation, as has indeed been done in every other case of mass atrocities in recent years, and which you have already called for, can provide a clear and comprehensive picture of the troubling events during and after the war, and an effective system of remedies and monitoring.<\/p>\n

Footnote (1)<\/p>\n

The Petrie report\u00a0\u00a0 concluded\u00a0 that \u201cevents in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond to early warning and the evolving events during the final stages of the conflict and its aftermath, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of civilians and in contradiction with the principles and responsibilities adopted by Member States and the Secretariat, agencies and programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN internal report also concluded that \u201c the UN\u2019s political engagement in Sri Lanka during the period from 2007 to the end of the conflict in May 2009 rmained secondary to the efforts of external actors.. These included other countries in the region, including India and China, along with Norway which had sponsored the CFA (Cease Fire Agreement); and the EU, Japan, and the US which, also along with Norway, formed a Co-Chair Group of States to coordinate financial contributions to Sri Lanka as a support to the peace process. The UN was not invited to be a member of the Co-Chair Group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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