Why the Government should not send a reply to the report of the UNSG’s advisory Panel ?
Posted on May 7th, 2011

By Charles.S.Perera

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Government of Sri Lanka as a member state of the UN should not accept to respond to a document presented by the Secretary General of the UN, which has not received the sanction of either the Security Council, or the General Assembly of Member States.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Secretary General of the UNO according to the UN Charter has no right to act independently without the authority of the Assembly General of the UNO or its Security Council. Therefore, the report of the Advisory Panel of the UNSG which is strictly a private document prepared by the Panel for the convenience of the UNSG to understand the intricacies of the final stage of the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-conflictƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ in Sri Lanka, as it is said in the document it self:

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- On 22 June, 2010 the SG announced the appointment of a Panel of Experts to advice him on the implementation of the joint commitment included in the statement issued by the President of Sri Lanka and the Secretary General at the conclusion of Secretary GeneralƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s visit to Sri Lanka on 23 March,2009.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, without even obtaining the approval of the Government of Sri Lanka as a Member State of UN, has no legal limb to stand on.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Therefore, a response to this document, which had not even the right to be published as a UN Document, will only give it a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-legal sanctionƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ which it lacked initially when it was published against the demand of the Government of Sri Lanka. Such an initiative by the Government of Sri Lanka to answer the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-reportƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, will further more give a precedent for the Secretary General of the UNO take arbitrary decisions against any member State of UNO, without consulting the Security Council or the General Assembly.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The joint commitment , mentioned in the above excerpt is the agreement of the Government of Sri Lanka for an accountability process, to take measures to address those grievances.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ The government of Sri Lanka fulfilled its part of the agreement in appointing the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee, consisting of highly qualified persons coming from different Communities of Sri Lanka.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ There was therefore no necessity for the SGUN to appoint a panel of his own to advise him on, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- modalities applicable, international standards and comparative experience relevant to an accountability processƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. Unless he wanted to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-insult ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- the honourable men of our own country as not qualified to applyƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ modalities applicable, international standards, and without comparative experience relevant to an accountability processƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The LLRC is far better qualified than his own Panel of three members who have no knowledge of the cultural back ground of the soldiers who took part in the final stages of the elimination of terrorists, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-to understand the nature and scope of alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law during the final stages of the armed conflict.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ That knowledge goes a long way to understand and analyse the mental make up of the soldiers of Sri Lanka Armed Force fighting a group of terrorists in their own homeland, who are also of the same origin though ethnically different, with the knowledge of their responsibility that in their military operations they have to do their best to avoid putting in danger the lives of the Tamil civilians who are also their own people. That obligation towards their own people sharing the same mother land is more important to avoid harming those people in the last stages of the conflict than any obedience to a humanitarian or human rights law.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ If the SGUN cannot accept the conclusions of the LLRC appointed by Sri Lanka Government is his problem, but he has no right to publish the findings of a panel appointed by him to advise him before the LLRC had concluded its investigations and issued its own report.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Secretary General of the UN should understand that he holds an important position. He is above politics, and independent of allegiance to any country or Nation. He is representative of all Nations. His position should remain independent and unbiased so that he could take objective decisions not influenced by any other Nation or a political system.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But unfortunately Ban Ki Moon as the Secretary General of UN in appointing a Panel under the pretence of it being a Panel appointed by him to advice him and then publishing the report of the panel as a UN Document calling the Government of Sri Lanka to answer the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-very questionableƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ accusations raised in the panelƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s report, is overstepping the bounds of his mandate as the Secretary General of UNO. He therefore stands accused as a man biased against a Member State and confiscates his right to be the Secretary General of that August body which is the UNO.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In conclusion, it has to be mentioned that it was infantile to accuse the terrorists equally responsible for the violation of human rights and humanitarian Laws, as it was wrong to have put both the terrorists and the Sri Lanka Armed Forces on the same footing and secondly the members of the panel should have at least known better that terror is what the terrorists are capable of and they are not bound by any laws, religious fear, or a feeling of human oneness. Therefore it is ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-stupidƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ to hold them accountable to their acts of terrorism.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ On the other hand as terrorists are no more to make them accountable to their terrorism, the Panel should have held those front organisations of the terrorists in the Tamil diaspora, such as Father Emmanuel of the LTTE Front Organisation, and those terrorist front organisations in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Netherlands and elsewhere, and Rudrakumaran responsible for the terrorism of the terrorists and hold them accountable.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This unfortunately, had been left out by the UNSGƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Panel. Why ?

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ However, the Government should acknowledge the receipt of the report, which had been published despite its opposition, with appropriate comments to show its disagreement, and request the Secretary General to await the issue of the report of the LLRC.

9 Responses to “Why the Government should not send a reply to the report of the UNSG’s advisory Panel ?”

  1. Lorenzo Says:

    Agree HLDM. Government should totally reject this unauthorised report and refuse even to bother replying.

    If a formal reply is made, that means the government accepts the authority of the report, agrees to go with their process, initiates another round of work for the panel. There is no need.

    Let it die a natural death.

    However, GOSL should condemn the act of appointing a panel with no legality that did a lousy job of fact finding and came up with a lousy report.

  2. ranjit Says:

    I truely agreed with Charles.Nothing more to add because it’s the truth. Why the hell we worried about these reports so much .Just let it die a natural death as Lorenzo says. Banki Monkey should concerntrate his job on more urgent issues around the world than ours.He should invite our President to the UN and give him a medal for erradicating terrorism from our soil which killed thousands of Innocent civillians in cold blood by a ruthless terrorist organization led by Prabakaran the murderer,coward and a traitir to his Motherland.

  3. dhane Says:

    Just ignore the private unauthorized “stupid” report it into the dust bin. Send a copy of LLRC Sri Lanka Government report to UN.

  4. Ariya Says:

    It is Ban ki Moon’s report to advise him. So let the report advise him, and do whatever he wants with it.

    He had paid the ‘panel’ money for the work, so why should anyone criticize or correct this ‘report’ free of charge, which is not a UN document, but a document for Ban ki Moon.

    I don’t believe this report had come to Sri Lanka as a document from UN to the Government of Sri Lanka, but sent in a roundabout way. Now, we can’t ask this Ban ki Moon to send it in the direct, official way, but keep official silence as it is not here. If this UNSG tells anyone ‘officially’ that the Sri Lankan government is not replying, the SL government could say, “send it the official way”. While Sri Lanka appears to have supposedly good Foreign Minister, but it looks like he is only a pothe gura. I cannot understand why MR chooses such nincompoops as his ministers like this FM, who once betrayed our country by acting as Anton Balasingham’s “private secretary”.

    Sometimes I think even the shouting Mervyn Silva is better than this type of FMs!

  5. Wickrama Says:

    Best thing to do is put an “RTS” stamp (Return To Sender) and return it to the idiot who has sent it in the first place.

  6. Kit Athul Says:

    Army has commited to give a response. I do not know how they can retract it now.

  7. Geeth Says:

    Isn’t that too late now to ignore the report? If ignoring is the remedy, we must have used that remedy long ago. Why must we ignore it now after all; initially paving the path to this whole scenario to unfold? Why we opened the path for the panel to issue this report in the first place? Entire panel is illegal. No doubt about it. Then why on this earth this illegal panel was allowed to enter into Sri Lankan soil to issue such a predetermined report? The GOSL must have known the objective of such panel when the initial proposal was put forward by the west.

    At that time all their allegations of war crimes were cast aside by GOSL on the basis that all they were based on unsubstantiated assertions. What accusers were missing at that time was the legitimacy of their accusations. They had no avenue to acquire this legitimacy through legal channels of UN since the Security Council eventually would discard such moves through veto powers of SL friendly permanent members in the SC. Under such circumstance the accusers desperately needed a legitimacy to establish their moral justification of their accusations by hook or the crook. If learned advisers of the administration never envisioned this reality, then they must quit their profession of advising to GOSL. I smell a rat here, because the mistake is so amateurish and unprofessional, cannot be justified by even Mahadanmutta’s theories. Do we have a Mahadanamutta in our ministry of external affairs? Do not we have highly qualified professionals in the ministry and a foreign minister with higher credentials after all?

    Was it a surprise to see this panel was leaking from its start to end? Whoever trusted this panel and allowed this entire episode to happen have to grow wise period. For me this entire thing is so sloppy, unacceptable and careless; not even worth to asses this for it is completely a pile of bull-shit.
    The million dollar question that we need to answer is on whose decision that this panel entered Sri Lankan soil to accommodate their advisory report in the first place? Who authorized it to happen? We thought the GOSL was very firm about their decision not to allow them to come in. Who changed this initial stance?

    However, answering this document is the defaulted reaction that this whole bunch of conspirators expects from the GOSL. By our response to it, we supply them their most anticipated, most needed legitimacy for this document. But what we must do is to do the unexpected, the opposite. We must initiate creating a formidable opposition against the biased and partial behavior of UNSG. We must create ban’s hell-hole out of this whole scenario. We must bring a motion of no confidence in the general assembly and openly campaign for voting in favor of the ‘no confidence motion. We must send our ambassadors in overseas to inform our case to all other nations in the south and request their help for the no confidence motion. In the draft of such motion we can properly establish our answer for this piece of trash. For ethical reasons, the world community does not need a murderous terrorist sympathizer in the position of UNSG. It’s been too long now; get the dog out of the manger ASAP!!!!!

    By the way, do not forget… “The cat can make mistakes, because it’s only toying its prey. But mouse cannot, because his quota of mistakes has been exhausted. That is the exact reason why he has been ended up in front of the cat now.”

  8. Lorenzo Says:

    Kit,

    There is no such “commitment’!

    There are instances where a replication must be submitted as part of a legal obligation. No such thing here.

  9. Lorenzo Says:

    If GOSL is going to reply, the following by a legal expert must be included in it.

    http://www.tamilnet.com/img/publish/2011/05/Document102.pdf

    NONE of the experts seems to be experts in the Geneva Conventions and the international law. They have self contradicted the report!

    In law there is nothing called “credibly alleged”. In some paragraphs the panel concludes war crimes and crimes against humanity without any jurisdiction to do so. In other paragraphs it says it cannot judge war crimes or crimes against humanity which must happen at a proper court appointed for the purpose.

    Simply BS. That’s what this report is all about. A shoddy and unprofessional load of nonsense.

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