When would there be a UN Human Rights Commissioner In Geneva fair and objective,able to separate facts from fiction to give Sri Lanka the recognition it deserves. – Part Two
Posted on February 11th, 2021

By Charles.S.Perera

Both the UN High Commissioners for Human Rights  Louise Arbour and Navi Pillai were Judges  with a legal background  therefore whatever sentiments they have towards the Tamil as voters in Canada or as being racial equals in the latter case of Navi Pillai,  they should have viewed the situation in Sri Lanka during the military offencive against terrorism, more objectively without being biased.   But they failed in that, and the result is more and more aggressive and damaging reports against the Government of Sri Lanka being produced for each  Geneva UN Human Rights Council Sessions every year.

It is almost as if the UN Human Rights Commission exists only to produce a report on the Sri Lanka government Armed Force, as it  is the only Armed Force which  has committed violation against human rights in a terrorist war. 

The worst of it is that all those reports of UN High Commissioners for Human Rights  are produced to satisfy the Tamil diaspora and to accuse  the Government of Sri Lanka and its Armed  Forces. No accusations have been levelled against the terrorists for the atrocities committed by them. Not only the UNHigh Commissioner, but also those member states that present resolutions against the Government and its Armed Forcesand,  those member states that vote against the  Government of Sri lanka supporting those resolutions by USA etc.,  are doing wrong acting insensitive to the suffering that people of Sri Lanka went through 30 long years  subjected to live in constant fear  of unknown forms of terrorist attacks resulting in horrible deaths and mutilation. 

Terrorism in Sri Lanka created fear, damage, and untold human suffering amoung its people, It is unfortunate that these people in Western countries or others do not try to understand  the  terrible fear in which the people lived under terrorism. Both parents from the same  home did not take the same transport any time so that if one would be killed in a terrorist attack , the other would survive  to look after the children

Zaid Raad Al-Hussein  was the next  UNHigh Commissioner for Human Rights  from 2014 to 2018. He was a Prince and a Diplomat and he had no special connection to the Tamil Community  like Louise Arbour or Navi Pillai.  But he did his job as the previous UN High Commissioners for Human Rights  bringing out an equally repressive strongly worded report against the Government of  Sri Lanka and its Armed Forces. These reports were of course prepared by the Office of the UN Human Rights Commission. Probably a copy and paste document  with additional material each time  to make it worse than the previous. 

The false Darusmn  report is still the basic document on which the Office of the UNHRC prepares the damning” report on Sri Lanka.. The Government of Sri Lanka had submitted a more reliable report- The Paranagama  Commission Report,  prepared by a Commission Led by a retired Judge Maxwell Paranagama appointed by the Government to Investigate into missing Persons. But unfortunately it had not been read  by the UNHCHR Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein.

If he had read it he would have had second thoughts about relying on the Darusman Report to accuse Sri Lanka and its  Armed Forces for violation of Human Rights.The Paranagama Commission report had challenged the Darusman report and stated that the number of civilians that may have died at the last phase of the military operations is definitely  not  40000 civilians, but 7721 civilian. 

As a Diplomat  and a Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Zeid  having no interest either in the terrorists or the Tamil Diaspora  unlike the previous  UN High Commissioners Louise Arbour and Navi Pillai, he should have atleast consulted the Government of Sri Lanka on the Report he was to present at the Geneva HR Council Sessions. But unfortunately it  is not the way these High Commissioners set about doing the work, though that seems more fair and reasonable.

Mme Michelle Bachelet New UN High Commissioner for Human Rights  

This time the UN Human Rights Council Sessions in Geneva begins with a new Government in Sri Lanka and a new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mme Michelle Bachelet. Perhaps we could expect  from her a different approach to Sri Lanka which had unfortunately  eliminated terrorism in its own territory  and earned the wrath of the West  just for that, and now being accused regularly at each UN HR Council Sessions in Geneva for violation of human rights in the course of elimination of terrorism. 

We could expect a different approach by the UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachalet  because unlike the Previous UN High Commissioners for Human Rights  she  has more political experience having been a member of the Party Socialist of Chili and Twice the  President of Chili. While the people of Sri Lanka went through  thirty years of  bitter suffering under a  ruthless terrorism,   Mme Bachelet has  the memories of the difficult times  Chili went through  under the Dictator Pinochet and his military rule, and the sad memories of her Father Alberto Bachelet who worked for Salvador Allande and later imprisoned and tortured by the Dictator. She is also aware that Slvadore Allende we all respect and honour was killed by the CIA.

But can we expect Mme Michelle Bachelet not to rely on a report prepared by some members of her Office and put before her for her signature,  or will she look at the situation differently by getting herself informed both about terrorists, and the Government of Sri Lanka. And how the  Armed Forces of the Government  fought the war against terrorism, by reading the Darusman Report and  also the reports submitted by the Government-Paranagama Commission Report, because there are two sides to a story” she should know before accusing any one of the parties ? 

The present  report on Sri Lanka she is to present at the next UNHRCouncil Session is devastating.   But do those who accuse the Sri Lanka Armed Forces know what the Armed Forces  went through in eliminating  a ruthless terrorism,  to bring peace and security to the people of all Communities in  Sri Lanka,  to allow them to live normal lives ? 

The report put before her may have  been written perhaps by the same person or the group of them in the Office of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, who also prepared the previous reports, for Mme Louise Arbour, Navi Pillai. and  Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein 

To write such a report against  the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka one should have  personal direct experience of the inhuman  unkindest  criminal actions of the Armed Forces of  Sri Lanka, if there had been any.  One cannot imagine  such an Armed Force to have built such hatred to civilians,   merely by reading the  false Darusman report. There must be something wrong with those in the Office of the UNHRCouncil to write  such a report without getting to know bothe the terrorist side of the story  and that of the  Armed Forces.

The Sri Lanka Armed Forces are not as the UNHRC portrays it in the report she is to present.. The Children of the  Tamil civilians in the North of Sri Lanka were forcibly taken away from the families by the terrorists  to be  child soldiers. Poor Tamil men, women and children were herded away like cattle to be kept as human shields  among guns and  cannons of the terrorists. They lived  in utter  misery,  under unimaginable  sanitary conditions, in fear of death in some form or another at any time.

 It was almost towards the end of the war against terrorism.  A sudden move against the terrorists by the armed forces or a firing against Armed forces by the terrorists would have resulted in the death of many of these Tamil civilians held by the terrorists as human shields. The armed forces were aware of this. The Soldiers  are also human beings, who had nothing against the Tamil civilians.  Therefore the Armed Forces had to move cautiously, in order  not to put the lives  of the Tamil civilians in danger, hence  they carried small arms.

Contrary to what the Tamil diaspora, and the report writers of the Office of the  UN Human Rights Council make out, the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka was a humanitarian Armed Force fighting against terrorists .  At a given moment before the final assault against the terrorists the Armed Forces decided to evacuate the Tamil Civilians serving as a human shield for the terrorists. And  the Armed Forces  risked their lives in a  most daring rescue operation perhaps carried out for the first time by an Armed Force in the World,  bringing away to safety 295,000 Tamil civilians  held by the terrorists as a human shield.

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