U.N. rights office gets mandate to document Sri Lanka war crimes
U.N. human rights boss Michelle Bachelet was given a mandate on Tuesday to collect and preserve information and evidence of crimes related to Sri Lanka’s long civil war, which ended in 2009 with the defeat of the separatist Tamil Tigers.
The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution, brought by Britain on behalf of a group of countries, boosting her office’s staff and powers, with a view to future prosecutions.
The vote at the 47-country forum in Geneva was 22 in favour, with 11 against including China and Pakistan, and 14 abstentions including India.
“Impunity has become more entrenched, progress in emblematic cases has stalled,” British ambassador Julian Braithwaite said, presenting the text on behalf of a group that included Canada, Germany, Malawi, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
But Sri Lanka’s ambassador, M.C.A. Chandraprema, rejected the text as “unhelpful and divisive”.
Asian countries including China and the Philippines closed ranks around Sri Lanka’s government, while Japan abstained.
The resolution expressed serious concern at trends over the past year that represented “a clear early warning sign of a deteriorating situation of human rights”.
These included putting military officers in charge of civilian government functions, an erosion of the independence of the judiciary, and impunity and “political obstruction of accountability” for crimes.
The United Nations believes 80,000 to 100,000 people died in the 26-year war, in which the Tamil Tigers hoped to carve out a separate state for the Tamil minority.
In the final months, civilian deaths soared as the army pinned the Tigers into a tiny strip of the northeastern coast, where the United Nations says they kept hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields.
In a report in January, Bachelet urged states to impose sanctions on former Sri Lankan military commanders, including the current army chief, who were suspected of links to atrocities during the latter part of the war.
(Reuters)
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I think government should have a referendum to ask SL citizens whether they wants to be in the UNHRC and implement the verdict. Why the poorest country in the African continent, it does not need much thinking to work out why Malawi voted to pass the resolution and weather it was without any duress or bullied or bribed by those countries who plundered most of the world, committed genocide and mass scale slavery and then appointed themselves to punish and preach others how to observe and protect human rights according to their book.
Yes, UN Human Rights got the mandate. Special thanks to big brother India, Nepal and Indonesia.
Congratulations human right commission.
In Sri Lanka , there is no law and order.
The commission appointed by president Gotabaya has recommended to withdraw all court cases against politicians and their henchmen.
We need to protect our country from these politicians. So help us.
You sound like a ‘subversive’ in disguise of a patriot and when you say “we need to protect our country” I believe you mean “I need my separate state.”
Approximately 7m of the eligible 16m voters elected the Head of State and the Governing Party in the elections conducted in the past one year.
GOSL resigned the Magala Samaraweera UNHRC resolution, unilaterally. That was a great move.
GOSL asserted the nation’s sovereignty by that action.
It is time now to withdraw form the UNHRC based on the solid mandate given to the rulers by the Sinhala Buddhist majority. A referendum is not required.
The Government certainly did the right thing by upholding the Honour of the Country and its brave Armed Forces unlike the TRAITOROUS “YAXAPALANA” regime which appeased the UNHCR ,the cesspool of Mr Trump. He got that right !! The UNHCR and the countries which supported the resolution, would you believe it, tacitly supported TERRORISTS AND TERRORISM against a democratically elected Government !! But, at least Sri Lanka now knows who its real friends are !!!! Yes, it is timely to consider leaving the CESSPOOL and while at it, to consider leaving the Commonwealth for the intolerable role played by the UK for purely political reasons and again siding with terrorists and terrorism. I have always said that the destiny of Sri Lanka is not with the West and India and this event clearly confirms it.
The west which spearheaded this motion, did so at the behest of the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora in the west, which politicians in the west depend on to “rake in Tamil votes” at election times. It is truly amusing to see LTTE flags still being freely displayed at rallies in some of these very western countries’ cities although LTTE is supposed to be a banned terrorist organization in those very countries – so the question is, yes, who are these western governments trying to fool? The fault lies here with the GOSL for not going after those who supported LTTE’s terrorism in SL by raising huge amounts of funds from within these very western countries, an action by which they made themselves to be no different to the actual LTTE terrorists who blew up buses/trains/supermarkets killing innocent Sri Lankans by the tens of thousands. If there had been a concerted program of legal action against them, leading for prosecution and inevitable formal extradition requests, I am sure these attempts would have abated and eventually come to a halt as these very western countries would not like the airing of dirty linen in the international arena.