Sri Lanka questions independence of U.N. Navi Pillay
Sri Lanka questioned the independence of the human rights office of the United Nations on Wednesday, a day after the United States with its Western allies asked the U.N. to investigate human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government.
The past violations relate to Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war with LTTE Tamil terrorists. But Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, G.L. Peiris, told a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva that his country doubted the independence of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the office of the U.N.’s human rights chief. The chief human rights officer at the U.N., Navi Pillay, is a South African of Tamil ancestry. Sources reported Navi Pillay is acting on behalf LTTE Tamil terrorist backed diaspora who are living in US and EU.
“We remain deeply concerned that the lack of financial independence of the OHCHR leads to the erosion of independence in its overall functioning,” Peiris said. The commission pays disproportionate attention to some countries, he said, and ignores human rights violations in other parts of the world by US and its allied forces.
The U.N., through two U.S.-sponsored resolutions in the last two years, has asked Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), a local panel appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Last week, Pillay called for an international inquiry into war crimes committed by both government forces and LTTE Tamil terrorists during a 26-year civil war based on the reports from pro-LTTE diaspora and NGO and some catholic priests who are being paid by the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora.
Sri Lanka has rejected calls for an international investigation and said it will conduct investigations under its local legal framework. Peiris said recommendations in Pillay’s report “are not placed within the ambit of the LLRC, as demonstrated by the call to establish an international inquiry mechanism.”
Sri Lanka, with China, South Africa, Cuba, Iran, and Russia, has said Pillay has failed to investigate the military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya and allegations of human rights abuses taking place in those countries.
A vote on the resolution is scheduled for the last week of the session, starting on March 24. India, South Asian power who is widely considered as the manipulator of regional bilateral relations with its neighboring countries has consecutively vote with US and Western against Sri Lanka at the previous two UNHRC sessions,
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