The United States will deliver a sharp public rebuke to Sri Lanka at the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March for failing to pursue those responsible for abuses as government forces were crushing Tamil rebels in 2009, officials said on Monday.

A three-member U.S. delegation is in Colombo on a five-day visit to discuss issues including progress in implementing the recommendations of Sri Lanka's own official investigation into the war, which called for the prosecution of soldiers suspected of killing civilians.
 

But Washington appeared dissatisfied enough to announce that it would repeat its action of last March, when it sponsored a resolution at the UNHRC urging Colombo to implement those recommendations.
 

"The U.S. has decided to sponsor a procedural resolution (against Sri Lanka) at the March 2013 sessions of the UNHRC," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Moore told reporters in Colombo.
 

"The U.S. and the other 23 members of the UNHRC who voted for that resolution in 2012 believe that the government of Sri Lanka needs to fulfil its commitments made to its own people."
 

Rights groups allege that the Sri Lankan military was responsible for the killing of thousands of ethnic minority Tamil civilians in the shrinking territory held by rebels in the last month before the end of the war.
 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government rejects the allegation and says it never targeted civilians.
 

It says it has been implementing the inquiry's recommendations, but rights groups and Western nations say the implementation is far from satisfactory.
 

Washington has also raised concerns about the removal of Sri Lanka's chief justice and restrictions on freedom of expression.
 

The government ignored established procedures to subject Shirani Bandaranayake to parliamentary impeachment, after which Rajapaksa sacked her and replaced her with a close ally. Leading jurists from around the world said the action violated international law.
 

"It is safe to say that the impeachment of the chief justice also contributed to the decision to ensure that the record (against Sri Lanka) stays fresh in Geneva," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Vikram Singh told reporters.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/u-criticize-sri-lanka-u-n-rights-council-200617447.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CcmJgdRfjQAo_rQtDMD

Avenues for action: the UNHRC and beyond

 

As the March session of the United Nations Human Rights Council approaches, and nearly a year after the resolution at the 19th session called on Sri Lanka to take credible action to ‘ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation’, it is clear that the island’s ethnic crisis has only deepened. The 2012 resolution relied on Sri Lanka acting responsibly and was therefore, arguably, bound to fail. Sri Lanka’s hostile reaction to the resolution and subsequent insincerity in addressing the issues it raised are not surprising. It is time for the international community to take decisive action.

 

This week the United States announced it will sponsor another resolution on Sri Lanka. This is a welcome development, although it very much remains to be seen if the resolution passes, and with what consequence. In short, the members of the UNHRC must now spell out in clear and concrete terms the consequences that President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime will face if it continues to defy international demands. And then decisively follow through with action.

 

Last year Sri Lanka made the argument that it needed ‘more time and space’. This disingenuous ploy is now laid bare: in the past year Sri Lanka has only intensified its various forms of repression. The international community has historically been well behind the curve on Sri Lanka’s escalating crisis. Prof Stephen Ratner, a member of the UN’s Panel of Experts that studied the horrific end to Sri Lanka war, argued recently that international institutions tasked with addressing problems like those then unfolding in Sri Lanka, were hindered by politics and unpreparedness, thus delaying prospects for accountability. These past failures must serve as a lesson and spur for action now.

 

Over the past year Sri Lankan diplomats have been on a hectic schedule, lobbying developing countries – particularly in Africa – in an effort to gather support against another resolution in Geneva. As usual the government will rely on supposedly representative Tamils to make its case; last March, human rights activists from diaspora and international organisations were startled to come face-to-face with paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, responsible for murder, kidnap, rape and trafficking of women, who was being presented as a symbol of reconciliation. Sri Lanka will also again attempt to portray itself as subject to ‘western’ harassment and deflect attention on its critics, rather than what is being criticised. But last year’s resolution, also sponsored by the US, was supported by a range of countries including Mexico, Nigeria and, at the last minute, India.

 

Moreover, the UNHRC is but one route the international community can take towards ensuring accountability. If UN institutions remain deadlocked, those genuinely committed to the universality of human rights protection are obliged to take up other options. A number of states have enacted legislation recognising the principle of universal jurisdiction for grievous violations of human rights and crimes against humanity. Many also have in place legislation to prosecute individuals responsible for genocide. These laws are already being used routinely in relation to violations in many other parts of the world. Sri Lanka should be no exception.

 

It is also time for the long overdue step of imposing tangible sanctions. It is no longer acceptable to blame Sri Lanka’s allies when effective pressure can be applied by regional bodies or individual states. The EU, for example, suspended Sri Lanka’s entitlement to GSP+ trade concessions in 2010. With the consequences now being much felt, the regime is under growing pressure at home to approach the EU again. The Commonwealth holds substantial influence over Sri Lanka - its membership is amongst the most valued by Colombo. Countries like the US, Britain and Australia have considerable leverage by virtue of their continuing trade, sporting and military links with Sri Lanka.

 

Without decisive international action, Sri Lanka’s crisis will deepen and intensify. The present growth in asylum flight is but one reflection of the coming disorder. The March session of the UNHRC has the potential – if it adopts a resolution with sufficient force and follows through with concrete action – to be a significant step, not only in advancing accountability but also in restoring much worn faith that international mechanisms can ensure a just and peaceful future for the Tamil people. However, whatever the outcome in Geneva next, members of the international community must now work separately towards this end.

 

http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=6935

The United States has announced it will introduce a fresh resolution to the UN Human Rights Council, in a bid to force Sri Lanka to keep its promise to investigate the military for alleged war crimes and atrocities.

US introduces UN resolution on Sri Lankan rights abuses (Credit: ABC)
 

The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, James Moore, says Washington will sponsor a procedural resolution at the March sessions of the Rights Council.

 

The Sri Lankan military has been accused of killing up to 40,000 civilians in the final months of the war against separatist Tamil rebels but Colombo has denied any civilians were killed by its troops.

 

The US government says while there has been some progress to investigate rights abuses, the fresh resolution was also prompted by the recent sacking of Sri Lanka's Chief Justice, Shirani Bandaranayake.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane

 

Speaker: Gordon Weiss, correspondent for The Global Mail, former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka during the end of the civil war

WEISS: It's the latest in an incremental approach to try and encourage Sri Lanka to account for what happened in the final days of the war. There have been a number of different reports produced by the United Nations. These even been an internal Sri Lankan report.

 

The last resolution which occurred in March, last year, came as a surprise to the Sri Lankans and achieved unexpected support from both the United States and much more unexpectedly from India. The Sri Lankans have been given a year to come up with substantive progress and the US having announced now that it intends to raise another critical resolution is an unmistakable sign that the Sri Lankans have not made adequate progress.

 

COCHRANE: So will there be specific things that this resolution will be looking for in terms of that progress?

WEISS: Yes, it will be, it will be asking Sri Lanka to abide by the agreement that it made with the Secretary-General on the 22nd of May, 2009, at the conclusion of the war, that it would account for what happened in the final months of the war and that one would see serious political progress in terms of reconciliation between the Tamils and majority Sinhalese community. Neither of those things have happened and in the interim, indeed oppression has increased in Sri Lanka, there was a crackdown on the media, the sacking of the Chief Justice is just the latest instance of a growing loss of civil liberties in Sri Lanka and more over, there has been increasing evidence that there were illegal executions and a widespread killing of civilians in the final months of the war. So Sri Lanka has, has broken both of those principle components of the agreement it's just signed with the United Nations.

 

 

COCHRANE: The biggest part of this, I guess, that we've been discussing and looking at for years now is the civil war component of it. The element that relates to wider human rights issues and in particular, the sacking of the Chief Justice. Is there a concern that that might water down any resolution or confuse the issues?

WEISS: No, I think they go hand-in-hand. I mean remember that Sri Lanka has long advanced this civil war as its primary reason for lagging on a whole lot of civil right issues. Now the war's been over for three years and and what's happened is that you have a loss of civil liberties in Sri Lanka. So I think that people generally see accountability for what happened in the final months of the war as linked to political progress in Sri Lanka.

 

 

 

COCHRANE: Now, reports on this have also mentioned tension between Sri Lanka and the US over the training of a Sri Lankan Army General, which apparently the US refused to conduct that training. Can you share anymore details on this particular tension?

WEISS: Well, there is, of course, a divided house in the US. The US military in general have been in favour of continuing military links with Sri Lanka. But increasingly as evidence of war crimes has emerged from Sri Lanka, the Justice and State Departrments in the US have taken umbrage at cooperation, military cooperation with Sri Lanka and the refusal of the US to train a number of officers who have been linked with credible reports of human rights abuses and war crimes is, is a sign of the US changing institutionally and the administration changing its stance on Sri Lanka, towards Sri Lanka.

 

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/connect-asia/us-introduces-un-resolution-on-sri-lankan-rights-abuses/1081206