RANJITH SOYSA

Vijitha Herat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, has stated that Sri Lanka did not attempt to join a losing race when he and the government decided to let the UNHRC to adopt the proposal A/HRC/60/21/2025 against Sri Lanka. He also added that they wanted to save funds by not getting involved in canvassing support from other nations. The minister’s excuses remind us of a tale of Demosthenes of an ass’s shadow in which two persons contended about trifles while both lost what they should have protected.

What happened in Geneva, was the losing of an opportunity to expose UNHRC ‘s continuous questionable approach to the defeating of the Tamil Tigers who were waging a separatist war. Their numerous crimes against Sri Lanka and her people had been excused by the UNHRC while extending a blind eye to the naked aggressions conducted by the USA, the UK , France, etc., in Afghanistan, Iraq Libya, etc. Further the UNHRC’s continuous insistence that the SL government has failed to probe the allegations is unreasonable. The UNHRC’s charter requires it to conduct its activities objectively”, impartiality , and non-selectivity” Without any justification to authorize investigation of a country it is illegal and unauthorized.

Sri Lanka under the present NPP government opposed the UNHRC Resolution but failed to insist on a vote perhaps to please its supporters from the overseas pro-LTTE organizations as the government’s approach was to allow the High Commissioner to proceed ahead with his programme of penalising Sri Lanka with their Accountability Project(SLAP) It is a known fact that the government is in the process of implementing the key requirements of the SLAP. In short. the government has exposed its policy of giving into the ‘’unauthorized’ process as proposed by the High Commissioner, The government has also encouraged the High Commissioner to gather ‘war crimes’ information and use this to plan to persecute war criminals”  under universal jurisdiction, Sri Lanka could have gained time by requesting a vote at the sessions through persuasive contributions from a number of friendly countries exposing the arbitrary actions of the UNHRC.

It is said that the UNHRC has spent over US$16 million of member states’ funds from 2021 for the process of of punishing of Sri Lanka” It is high time the member nations investigated how the money was spent as many UN affiliated organizations are well known for their lack of transparency.

While Sri Lankan government has opted to be satisfied in wearing a fool’s cap the country has missed an opportunity to explain the right  action taken to defeat the violent terrorism of the LTTE

RANJITH SOYSA