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We wish to share with you the following article from Sri Lanka Guardian.
Asian Human Rights Commission
Hong Kong
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An article from Sri Lanka Guardian forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission
SRI LANKA: AG’s ‘Chandi’ attack on UN Rapporteur Philip Alston
“The Attorney General’s attack on this matter also brings many issues of ethical nature. The profession of the Attorney General is that of being an independent adviser to the government and being the chief prosecutor on crimes.”
by Our Correspondent in Geneva
(June 06, Geneva, Sri Lanka Guardian) Attorney General Mohan Peries’s imitating the styles of Minister Mervin Silva and Hudson Samarasinghe of SLBC engaged in an amusing attack on the UN Rappoteur Philip Alston. The Sri Lanka’s approach to the United Nations human rights system, in the recent times has become almost like the one of Zimbabwe, which is engaged in a game of denial, whenever its human rights record is being brought to criticism.
Philip Alston UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, made a simple observation that the attack on Flotilla by Israel and which allegedly killed over nine persons and the Sri Lanka’s attacks , at the end of the conflict with LTTE last year should be subjected to an international investigation by the UN’s human rights body as nationally established commissions have a poor record. Philip Alston was referring to the normal practice of the United Nations to inquire into serious abuses of human rights which is very purpose for which the council has been established.
The UN human rights system has been established in order to encourage co-operation among the states to implement human rights in terms of the conventions that the states parties themselves have ratified. The council is the august assembly of all the nations where the business is conducted in a dignified manner, on the basis of information placed before the commission and it is not an adversarial system. The spirit of the council is not to encourage denial but in fact the very opposite. Sri Lanka in the recent years has been engaged on consistent attack on the human rights council trying to portrait it as some sort of conspiratorial body engaged in trying to undermine the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. Very concept in which the human rights council is based in that the sovereign states themselves co-operate in protecting the rights of the citizens. The recognition that the sovereignty of the state does not give it the right to violate the rights of its own citizens, is the very basis of the conventions that the state parties have agreed among themselves.
The accusations that has been brought before many UN officers on the basis of information that they have received including the UN Secretary General the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and several rapporteurs is that serious allegations of human rights abuse has been made and therefore these need to be investigated in a credible manner. It is obvious, that those who are alleged to have committed offences should not themselves be the parties, that should investigate these matters. That would go against any kind of serious approach for protection of human rights.
The earlier Professor G L Peries also attacked Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner of Human Rights for her remarks. Her remarks were as follows.
The past month has marked the first anniversary of the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka. I call on the Council to reflect on the commitments made by the Government of Sri Lanka when the Council held its special session to address the serious concerns which had arisen in the last stages of the fighting in that country. Since then, some progress has been made in the return and resettlement of internally displaced persons and the partial relaxation of emergency measures. Concrete initiatives must now follow to provide justice and redress to victims and generally to promote accountability and longer-term reconciliation. The Government has recently created a Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation to address some of these questions. However, based on previous experience and new information, I remain convinced that such objectives would be better served by establishing an independent international accountability mechanism that would enjoy public confidence, both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.
Kind of attitude that Sri Lanka is now adopting towards the human rights council and human rights bodies of United Nations, only reveals stubborn approach to prevent any kind of investigations into the situations of human rights in the country.
Ethics
The Attorney General’s attack on this matter also brings many issues of ethical nature. The profession of the Attorney General is that of being an independent adviser to the government and being the chief prosecutor on crimes. Both these functions have been exercised in Sri Lanka by the Attorney General’s department for 125 years now. The role of the Attorney General has been defined in terms of the Common law principles and the utter independent from the existing political regime is a necessary and a primary condition of this profession. Attorney General Mohan Peries has from the beginning behaved more like a complete political stooge of the existing regime rather than exhibiting any kind of independence. His conduct is professionally completely unethical and contrary to the very objective of this profession.
Question is not merely about the dignity of the human rights council and the manner in which the state should behave in the diplomatic discourse which takes place at the council. The ultimate question is the rights of the Sri Lankan people, all the citizen of Sri Lanka. Each citizen has rights. Individual citizen’s rights cannot be destroyed, on the basis of collective political agenda of any particular group or of a regime. Each individual has rights when there are allegations that these rights have been violated, the state cannot take the position that it was done for a collective purpose. Essentially Sri Lanka’s position is for a collective purpose of destruction of LTTE, it has done whatever it has done and whatever that happened must now be forgotten. This goes against all the convections that the Sri Lankan government has ratified and its obligations under these conventions. Virtually while remaining in the human rights council and remaining a member states, it is violating very principles on which whole relationship within the human rights council and the United Nations is being regulated.
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