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SRI LANKA REJECTS UN HUMAN
RIGHTS HIGH COMMISSIONER LOUISE ARBOUR'S 'WARNINGS', VEILED THREATS
The Permanent Mission
of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva
15th January 2008
The Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka rejects as gratuitous the statement
issued by Madame Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
on the occasion of Sri Lanka's withdrawal from the Ceasefire Agreement
(CFA) of 2002.
The title of her statement refers inaccurately to "End of Ceasefire
in Sri Lanka". The ceasefire ended quite some time ago, when the
LTTE unilaterally returned to full-scale hostilities in December 2005
after having already committed thousands of violations -- including
hundreds of lethal violations -- from the outset of the CFA in 2002,
as recorded by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). The event Madam
Arbour's statement laments is not the end of the ceasefire but the withdrawal
from the CFA, and that too in terms of the ceasefire agreement itself.
The CFA of 2002 was not an agreement between two or more sovereign states,
or between a sovereign state and the international system. It was an
agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and an armed, violent
non-state actor, the LTTE, which has been described just last week by
the FBI as "one of the most dangerous extremist organizations in
the world"; one which pioneered the suicide belt and the woman
suicide bomber, and the only terrorist organization in the world to
be responsible for the killing of political leaders of two countries.
From the outset, the validity of the CFA was called into question within
Sri Lanka, not least because its nationally elected Executive refused
to sign it. Withdrawal from the CFA is a sovereign decision of the Government
of Sri Lanka.
This Mission does not recall Madame Louise Arbour issuing a warning
similar to her current one when the LTTE was bloodily violating the
ceasefire agreement to the extent of assassinating Sri Lanka's Foreign
Minister Hon Lakshman Kadirgamar, or planting Claymore mines against
civilian buses, or leaving parcel bombs at crowded shopping centres,
all of which intentionally caused the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
Sri Lanka was not in violation of international criminal law in the
years of armed conflict before the signing of the CFA and after, is
not now, and will not be in the future.
Sri Lanka is firmly committed to a political solution to the legitimate
grievances of the Tamil people, based on the devolution of power. It
will not be deterred by thinly veiled (if pathetically unenforceable)
threats, attempting to undermine the morale of its military, deter its
military campaigns and save separatist terrorism from elimination.
It is unfortunate that the High Commissioner's statement does not seem
to have taken into account the reports produced by various Special Rapporteurs
of the Human Rights Council who visited Sri Lanka, most recently the
Eastern Province, weeks after it was liberated from the LTTE by the
Sri Lankan military.
Instead she has thought it appropriate not only to communicate her
concern at the abrogation of the CFA but also to issue a warning on
'individual criminal responsibility under international criminal law'
despite the fact that there was no indication in any of these reports
that such a warning to the Government of Sri Lanka was warranted.
Reading her statement, Sri Lanka is curious to know whether similar
warnings (as distinct from statements of concern or condemnation) have
been issued by the High Commissioner to other States in their conduct
of wars much more serious both in scale and impact on International
Humanitarian Law than the Sri Lankan situation.
The High Commissioner has once again proven one point - how unqualified
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is in monitoring
and reporting human rights in Sri Lanka as an independent actor.
In the light of this obvious bias, Sri Lanka feels strongly that the
OHCHR should be more transparent in its funding and decision-making
and more representative of the world's peoples and regions in its composition,
all of which have been repeatedly called for by the member States of
the UN Human Rights Council.
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United Nations Human Rights Chief urges respect for international law
with end of ceasefire in Sri Lanka
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/media.aspx
TAMING THE TAMIL TIGERS - From Here in the U.S.
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/jan08/tamil_tigers011008.html
www.lankamission.org ©
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