Font size: 
The Sri Lankan president drew upon the growing international antipathy to terrorism, which took an upward climb following the terror attack on the United States in September 2001, to strengthen his government's justification for its use of the military option to restore democracy and peace to the country.
The president's references to the restoration of democracy and plans for massive reconstruction in the newly recaptured areas of the east could have impressed the international delegates. The correspondence between democracy and elections is so strong in the international community that it becomes easy to see those who promise these as upholders of the higher values of civilization.
But back home in Sri Lanka, most particularly in the north and east where the military conflict between the government and LTTE is focused, the situation was starkly different from that sketched out by the president in New York. The most recent report of the international monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission says that the security situation in the north and east continues to be bleak and deteriorating for the civilian population. The remnants of the LTTE still present in the east, and the possibility of fresh infiltration from outside, create a security crisis in which people are constantly checked, detained, abducted and assassinated.
It was not only in New York that the government took the offensive. The government also temporarily staved off a much anticipated resolution against it by the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The assumption that the Human Rights Council would call Sri Lanka to account for its deteriorating human rights record proved to be a mistaken one.
Many of the countries represented in the Human Rights Council are from the third world, or are those who also face problems similar to those faced by Sri Lanka. Each of these countries is cynically aware that if they were to take up a principled stance against a fraternal country, they are liable to be at the receiving end of that same principled stance.
Those who wish conflict resolution and problem solving in national and international affairs to take place on the basis of human rights, peace and justice may wish that the U.N. Human Rights Council were primarily a human rights body. But this is not the case, as it is primarily a political body just as much as the United Nations, which is a political organization where the interests of member states come before everything else. For instance, the Human Rights Council failed to meet to discuss a resolution that would condemn the Burmese government for suppressing the people's movement that demands change in that country. The Sri Lankan government selected a delegation that took advantage of this situation to attack and discredit its opponents.
An example would be a working document listing 547 persons killed and 396 persons disappeared between January and June this year, compiled by the Law and Society Trust, in collaboration with four local partners including the Civil Monitoring Commission and the Free Media Movement, which was submitted to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry as well as relevant members of the government.
The government delegation identified eight of the names on this list as those of Sri Lankan soldiers. They sought to discredit the NGOs, arguing that "the callousness with which the dead become statistics, mere grist to the mill of these ghouls, does no service to those who suffer through violations of human rights." But they had nothing to say about the 935 other persons who had been killed or disappeared and whose spirits cry for justice.
A second example would be the government delegation calling upon "the Office of the Special Representative and the international community to impress upon the LTTE and its breakaway Karuna faction to give priority to implementing the recommendations made in the 20th December report of the U.N. Secretary-General on Children Affected by Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka and to cease child recruitment immediately and return child combatants and young persons to their families so that they can be reintegrated." However, this statement made no mention of the fact that the Karuna group is an important ally of the government and that the armed cadres of the Karuna group operate freely in government-controlled areas.
In New York and Geneva, the Sri Lankan government denied that there was a crisis of human rights in the country. This means that obtaining positive change from the government and its agencies is unlikely at this time. For an improvement in the ground situation it may be necessary for an international human rights monitoring mechanism to be established in Sri Lanka on the lines of the U.N. human rights monitoring mechanism established in Nepal with field offices.
As a part of the peace process that led to the peace agreement between the Nepali government and Maoist rebels there was agreement to establish U.N. field offices to monitor the human rights situation. President Rajapaksa frequently refers to his pride in Asia. Hopefully, Sri Lanka could follow the Nepal example.
--
(Dr. Jehan Perera is executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, an independent advocacy organization. He studied economics at Harvard College and holds a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School. ©Copyright Jehan Perera.)
