ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday (22) addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York said a lasting solution to reconciliation could be achieved only through local institutions.
His speech came a week after UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet raised fresh concerns over alleged human rights violations in Sri Lanka and said her office has started collecting evidence to develop possible strategies for future accountability processes for gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka ended one of Asia’s longest wars in 2009 after annihilating Tamil Tiger separatists, who demanded an independent state in the island nation’s North and East.
However, the state military and the government leaders who were in charge of commanding the military have been accused of serious war crimes including deliberate killing and shooting of Tiger cadres who some reports say who came out to surrender with white flags. Sri Lanka has denied the allegation.
Before the end of the 26-year civil war, the Indian Ocean island had seen two insurrections in the predominantly Sinhalese south which were brought under control by brutally suppressing the rebels. A decade after the war ended, the country saw a series of suicide attacks by Islamist militants on Easter Sunday in 2019.
“Violence robbed Sri Lanka of thousands of lives and decades of prosperity in the past half century,” Rajapaksa told the UN gathering in New York during his first visit to the US after being elected president.
“My government is committed to ensuring that such violence never takes place in Sri Lanka again. We are therefore acting to address the core issues behind it,” he said.
“Fostering greater accountability, restorative justice, and meaningful reconciliation through domestic institutions is essential to achieve lasting peace. So too is ensuring more equitable participation in the fruits of economic development.”
Western nations, human rights groups, and ethnic minority Tamils in Sri Lanka have demanded an international probe over alleged human rights violations. They have said successive governments have not only failed to address alleged past violations, but also to prevent fresh human rights abuses.
Many of them seem to have lost trust and confidence in successive Sri Lanka governments, saying that the elected governments have only hoodwinked the international community without much progress in addressing human rights abuses.
However, Rajapaksa said his government has a firm intention for a better future.
“It is my government’s firm intention to build a prosperous, stable and secure future for all Sri Lankans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or gender,” he said in his 17-minute speech.
“We are ready to engage with all domestic stakeholders, and to obtain the support of our international partners and the United Nations, in this process. However, history has shown that lasting results can only be achieved through home-grown institutions reflecting the aspirations of the people.”
The nationalist Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), the party that leads Rajapaksa’s coalition government, has rejected any “external intervention” in addressing the alleged human rights violations.
The UNHRC adopted a resolution in March this year to investigate such alleged rights abuse despite strong opposition by the Rajapaksa government and its refusal to cooperate.
The SLPP-led government unilaterally withdrew from a UN resolution adopted in 2015 which urged the country’s domestic institutions to address alleged past abuses.
However, foreign minister G L Pieris last week said the government has been actively continuing the domestic mechanism, most of which was agreed to in 2015.
“Sri Lanka’s parliament, judiciary and its range of independent statutory bodies should have unrestricted scope to exercise their functions and responsibilities,” Rajapaksa said.
“If, in keeping with the theme of our General Debate today, we are to truly build resilience through hope, we must all strive towards the common good. It is the role of the United Nations to facilitate this by treating all sovereign states, irrespective of size or strength, equitably, and with due respect for their institutions and their heritage,” he said. (Colombo/Sep22/2021)