{"id":41566,"date":"2015-02-15T21:33:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T03:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=41566"},"modified":"2015-02-15T14:32:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T21:32:17","slug":"geneva-report-as-acid-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/02\/15\/geneva-report-as-acid-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Geneva report as acid test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Island Editorial \u00a0Courtesy Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

A government effort to secure UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon\u2019s assistance to have the March 25 release of UNHRC war crimes report on Sri Lanka delayed has come a cropper. The UNSG reportedly told Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera at a recent meeting in New York that it was an issue for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra\u2019ad Al Hussein.<\/p>\n

Minister Samaraweera has said in Washington that the situation at home is fragile and, therefore, the government is seeking a postponement of the release of the report at issue till September. We thought the situation was quite stable here. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government is backed by all parties represented in Parliament. Its budget has been passed with a huge majority. There is no way the SLFP can unsettle the government with President Maithripala Sirisena at its helm.<\/p>\n

When the two main parties cooperate in this manner how can the situation be described as fragile?<\/p>\n

Why is the government so desperate to have the release of the Geneva report postponed? If the document is released as scheduled it will have to make a stand on the recommendations therein. If it rejects the report out of hand it will antagonise not only the western countries behind the UNHRC action against Sri Lanka but also the TNA which has welcomed an international war crimes probe. It will be politically suicidal for the government to accept the UNHRC report with only four months to go for a general election. Such action will cost the UNP dear in terms of votes in the so-called southern electorates, especially the ones former President Mahinda Rajapaksa won comfortably in last month\u2019s presidential race.<\/p>\n

President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe during the presidential election campaign vowed to defend those responsible for the country\u2019s successful war on terror. Interestingly, Sirisena claimed he had functioned as Acting Defence Minister during some crucial stages of the conflagration. Several prominent members of the then Opposition such as Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Rajiva Wijesinha and M. M. Zuhair warned that the country would have to face economic sanctions if Rajapaksa was re-elected; the only way to avoid disaster, they said, was to effect a regime change before the UNHRC summit in March. Many people who had earlier voted for the UPFA to protect political and military leaders who won the war took the then Opposition\u2019s assurances and warnings seriously and voted against Rajapaksa last month to usher in good governance.<\/p>\n

It is only after the release of the UNHRC report that people will really know whether the country has benefited from last month\u2019s regime change as regards the UNHRC action and how the new government will handle the Geneva issue.<\/p>\n

The government obviously wants to avoid making a stand on the UNHRC report before the next general election expected in June. If the UNHRC agrees to postpone the release of the report, it will be accused of politicising and compromising its human rights agenda which it is expected to pursue regardless of political situations in member states.<\/p>\n

The UN continues to draw heavy flak from internationally reputed personalities. Former UNSG Kofi Annan and ex-Norwegian PM Gro Harlem Brundtland have, in a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, accused the UN of having failed to serve its primary purpose\u2014saving the world from wars\u2014and called for making the organisation stronger and effective.<\/p>\n

UN human rights chief, Al Hussein, has earned a reputation as a tough, fiercely independent, no-nonsense international civil servant. But, if the UNHRC, on his watch, gives in to western pressure and delays the release of its Sri Lanka report he will be seen to be as malleable as his immediate predecessor.<\/p>\n

There is absolutely no reason why the release of the UNHRC report on Sri Lanka should be delayed. This country has to face it. The sooner the better! Whether it is issued in March or August does not make much of a difference for the ordinary Sri Lankans.<\/p>\n

Let the report be released in March as scheduled so that Sri Lankans will be able to see, before the next parliamentary election, what is in it and how the government will respond to the Geneva challenge\/threat. That will be the real acid test for the new dispensation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Island Editorial \u00a0Courtesy Island A government effort to secure UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon\u2019s assistance to have the March 25 release of UNHRC war crimes report on Sri Lanka delayed has come a cropper. The UNSG reportedly told Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera at a recent meeting in New York that it was an issue for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}