FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AS-231-2006
October 4, 2006
A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission
SRI LANKA: Only the practice of telling the truth can bring back respect for Sri Lanka’s international diplomacy
The Sri Lanka government has withdrawn its candidate, Jayantha Dhanapala, from the list of contestants for the post of UN Secretary General after he consistently came in last in a series of straw polls (an unofficial vote to assess the support of a candidate). Jayantha Dhanapala was the first to declare his candidacy for the office of the next Secretary General and his name was also the first to be withdrawn. This is despite the fact that Jayantha Dhanapala has an exceptional record of international diplomacy within the United Nations.
The negative response to his candidacy is much more of a reflection of the very low esteem Sri Lanka enjoys in international politics and diplomacy today rather than an indictment on the candidate himself. It is simply impossible for a country to have an extremely bad record in human rights and at the same time hope that the candidate it promotes will receive high approbation in the international community. The recent judgment of the Sri Lankan Supreme Court that the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has no internal effect and that the signature of the president in 1997 to the Optional Protocol of the ICCPR is ultra vires, if not reversed by Sri Lanka will also contribute immensely to bringing the country even lower in the estimation of the international community, which in turn will effect the prospect of any Sri Lankan playing a significant role on matters affecting international human rights and peace.
In the recent decades the Sri Lankan diplomats have been placed in the pitiable position where they have had the task of trying to defend the countrys human rights record. These diplomats have for example had to deny the massive scale of disappearances that have taken place in the country, in the South, North and the East. While some other countries and civil society organizations were raising international awareness of serious human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, it has been the task of these diplomats to deny the validity of such accusations. The Sri Lankan delegations before UN commissions have even denied the existence of endemic torture in the countrys police stations. Some other diplomats have had to spend their valuable time trying to dissuade governments in more affluent countries from admitting Sri Lankan citizens as refugees on the basis of persecution within their country.
Can a diplomat be an enemy to his own people under the pretext of serving the interests of a particular government? Should a diplomat spread misinformation on the real human rights situation in the country for the sake of keeping up the good name of the country? The better traditions of diplomacy in all countries show that diplomats, like all professionals tell the truth to their own countries and governments and will not allow them to be pushed beyond an acceptable point on matters of factual veracity and integrity. The recent example of Joseph Wilson, a former US diplomat, who published an article criticising the Bush administration’s use of intelligence before the war in Iraq, thereby undermining its allegation that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger, a matter which Wilson had investigated, is one such. President Bush had mentioned Niger in his State of the Union speech. The history of diplomacy in many countries has demonstrated that the capacity of diplomats to reveal the truth, even when it is very unpleasant to their governments, has saved their nations from falling deeper into catastrophes.
The very fact that Sri Lanka during the last decades has been going deeper and deeper into crises is a clear indication that within the state apparatus itself there is no tradition of telling the truth. No value seems to be attached to those officers, including diplomats who bring to the notice of the government in the sharpest possible way, the impact of government policies internally and internationally.
There is no way that the country can climb out of the depth of the catastrophe it is facing now without the practice of telling the truth emerging as a habit as against that of the white washing that is now prevalent. Not telling the truth only creates momentary illusions of grandeur while in fact the country is sinking into the deepest problems and being assigned to a more and more contemptuous position regarding its performance in all areas of life with particular emphasis on the respect for the human rights of its citizens.
As for Jayantha Dhanapala one great contribution that he could make to the nation is to make a critical review of the country’s diplomacy during the recent decades perhaps emulating a former Supreme Court judge, Mr. K.M.M.S. Kulatunga, who, in his retirement wrote a book entitled Disorder in Sri Lanka in which he analysed the failures of the justice system that have brought the country to the state that it is now in. Such a review of Sri Lankan diplomacy may throw light on the ways in which the country will be able to overcome the present debacles it is facing inside the country as well as outside.
