Sri Lanka will resist rogue
R2P
PR, UN Geneva in reply to NGO statement on
Sri Lanka HR situation
The Permanent Mission of
Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva
05th June 2008
H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka - Ambassador and Permanent Representative
of
Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Geneva
While Sri Lanka stands by the 2005 UN World Leader's Summit definition
of the Responsibility to Protect, any attempt to apply fake versions
to Sri Lanka will meet with a "full spectrum of resistance by the
Sri Lankan people and State who'll defend their sovereignty by any means
necessary", said H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Ambassador and Permanent
Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations and Other International
Organizations in Geneva.
He was speaking at the Eighth Session of the United Nations Human Rights
Council which is currently being held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva,
Switzerland. Yesterday (04th June 2008), during the General Debate on
Item 3 on Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political,
economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development,
Sri Lanka exercised its right of reply to comment on the remarks made
by the European Union (EU) on Sri Lanka and Prof. Karen Parker on the
Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Given below is the full-text of Dr.
Jayatilleka's response.
"Thank you Mr. President,
We note a reference to Sri Lanka in the EU statement. The EU has expressed
its utmost concern and disappointment concerning Sri Lanka. We wish,
Mr. President, that this concern of the EU had been extended to the
testimony of Professor Philip Alston on parts of the globe in which
European troops are involved in combat. Professor Alston mentioned at
least two such places in which horrors were taking place; one, in the
South Asian region. So, we commend the Biblical saying "Why beholdest
thou the mote that is in thine brother's eye but considerest not the
beam that is thine own?" Matthew 7:3, I believe.
Now, a representative of an NGO called the International Education
Development, IED, which curiously also stands for Improvised Explosive
Device [laughter], brought in the concept of Responsibility to Protect
in relation to Sri Lanka. Mr. President, the Sri Lankan State is in
the process of exercising its responsibility to protect its citizens'
Right to Life from the threat of terrorism. Even today, a bomb has injured
at least 18 people who were commuters on a train. The responsibility
to protect is invoked in the loosest of senses by many these days. Mr.
President, Sri Lanka remains committed to the World Leaders' Summit
of 2005, in which the Responsibility to Protect is to be exercised and
decided upon by the UN Security Council and none other. If any misguided
parties attempt to invoke the Responsibility to Protect in relation
to Sri Lanka outside of that Security Council, well, they must be prepared
for a full spectrum of resistance by the Sri Lankan people and State
who'll defend their sovereignty by any means necessary.
Thank you Mr. President."
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