Several areas of concern in resolution- MR

27 September 2015 04:01 pm

Stating that the sponsors of the draft resolution on Sri Lanka had failed to heed the request of the Sri Lankan Ambassador in Geneva not to place primary emphasis on the alleged war crimes issue and to change their approach, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday that there were several areas of concern in the resolution

Mr. Rajapaksa in a statement said, the first operational paragraph encourages the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the recently released OHCHR report on Sri Lanka. “The most contentious recommendations in that report have been included as operational paragraphs in the UNHRC draft resolution as the following indicates:

"Operational Paragraph 4 welcomes the willingness of the government of Sri Lanka to allow the mechanisms set up ‘to deal with the past’, to obtain financial and material assistance from ‘international partners.’ This would amount to personnel in important judicial and non-judicial bodies in Sri Lanka being paid by foreign powers.

"Paragraph 6 ‘takes note with appreciation’ the government’s proposal to set up a judicial mechanism to investigate violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and ‘affirms’ the importance of the participation of foreign prosecutors, judges, investigators and lawyers in this process, and is contrary to the claim now being made by the government that any mechanism set up will be purely domestic."

Drawing the attention to Paragraph 8, he said it encouraged the government to remove from office military officers suspected of having violated human rights through a vetting process (even if there is no evidence to prosecute them). “This in reality amounts to a purge of the armed forces,” he said.