Editorial

‘We look forward to receiving the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Sri Lanka,’ concluded the Sri Lanka Government statement to the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva.

The reference is to the ‘official visit’ by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, to Sri Lanka starting tomorrow (June 23), according to a Foreign Ministry release which omits mentioning an invitation by the Government. Given the relevance of the visit to the forthcoming September session of the Council where the High Commissioner is mandated to present a report on accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka, very little has been said by the Government so far as to why this visit is so eagerly awaited.

The previous visit by a High Commissioner took place in 2016 following Sri Lanka’s controversial honeymoon with the UNHRC and the co-sponsorship of the Council resolution. Mired in confusion and controversy back in Colombo, that saw the then Government committing to international participation in an accountability mechanism in the aftermath of the conflict in which Sri Lanka was successful in ending separatist terrorism.

The Government at the time seemed to believe it was better to ‘embrace your enemy’ than adopt hostility. It had shades of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE, which was highly criticised, though it also split the LTTE military wing, but it was a highly risky policy to take. Given the widespread adverse public reaction, later governments reversed the policy, and in the recent past, governments have kept Human Rights High Commissioners well away from the country.

Is this Government believing in the ‘embrace your enemy’ policy too?

Even if there is little indication as to what Sri Lanka hopes to gain from this visit, the pro-LTTE diaspora and their representatives elected to legislatures in Western countries are clear as to the direction in which they want to head at the UNHRC sessions in September, fortified with an additional report by the UN High Commissioner following his visit.

The tempo of the false narrative of the ‘genocide lobby’ has increased in the meantime— in Canada and the UK especially.

All of these multiple strands, as well as the domestic politics in the North and East, will clearly feed into the UN High Commissioner’s visit and subsequent report, which will then be choreographed at the Council by the ‘Core Group’—read UK and Canada—now that the US Trump administration has withdrawn from the Council citing ‘bias’ and ‘waste of funds’. The visitor cannot, therefore, leave Sri Lanka empty-handed—he must deliver to his mandate-holders and financiers, surely.

While those proposing further punitive action on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC in September seem to have got their act together, it is questionable whether the Government has fully grasped the situation and its game plan beyond ‘looking forward to’ the visit, even if Mr. Turk’s unmandated May 2024 Report on Sri Lanka refers to disappearances during previous insurgencies, a direct reference to the 1971 and 1987/89 JVP insurgencies.

Furthermore, the visiting High Commissioner’s own recent concept of the ‘human rights economy’ breaks new ground in his scope for commentary on socio-political and economic internal matters in Sri Lanka. The UNHRC has already established a so-called Accountability Project on Sri Lanka which continues to gather evidence on human rights violations, and the objective of the forthcoming report in September includes considering further options for accountability.

The High Commissioner’s office would, no doubt, also have noted Sri Lanka’s shifting goalposts. At the March session of the Council, Sri Lanka spoke of a planned ‘contours of a truth and reconciliation framework’, while last week, it was ‘seeking to expedite legal proceedings through the creation of an independent public prosecutor´s office’.

The Core Group (UK-Canada, etc.) statement on Sri Lanka to the ongoing session of the Human Rights Council significantly notes ‘the more peaceful approach’ taken this year towards events commemorating the defeat of the LTTE and the end of the conflict in 2009.

The much-commented-on recent incident where President A.K. Dissanayake first seemed to skip attending the ‘War Heroes’ ceremony honouring those who paid the ultimate price and were mortally wounded defeating the LTTE, and then seemingly bowed down to intense public criticism in order to eventually attend the parade, was a clear message that these sensitive matters are not to be treated lightly. All kinds of insinuations are being made against this Government that is straining to distance itself from the triumphalism associated with the defeat of the LTTE. They seem to tread a different path towards what they perceive is reconciliation with the North.

The blowback from their attempt at downplaying the May 19 Remembrance Day of fallen soldiers will ring in their collective ears, for the President nearly tripped balancing on the tightrope. The Core Group statement was a giveaway.

Even a domestic mechanism to try military personnel is bound to ignite extreme nationalism on all sides. If the intended or unintended outcome of this visit is to further entrench Sri Lanka in the Geneva human rights machinery in September, the JVP-NPP Government must proceed with its eyes wide open.

The work of the UN Human Rights Council and the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner) beleaguered by allegations of double standards and selectivity is now also crippled by a budgetary crisis following the withdrawal of US funding. Under the current severe financial constraints, it is surprising that the High Commissioner has prioritised a visit to Sri Lanka, quite apart from the financial resources required for the maintenance of the superfluous Accountability Project on Sri Lanka.

There is a global crisis in human rights. The visiting High Commissioner knows it; he has said it himself. Countries taking a lead at the UNHRC on Sri Lanka’s defeat of terrorism are dragging their feet—with a ‘Nelsonian eye’—on the unimaginable atrocities in the Gaza Strip, where children are being killed, maimed or starved to death on a daily basis. Shouldn’t Mr. Turk be visiting that region as a more important consideration? Of course, such a visit will not be ‘looked forward to’ by the devil-may-care powers-that-be in that part of the world.

Human rights were conceived in recognition of the ‘dignity and worth’ of the human person. However, today more than ever, it is realpolitik and vested interests, not global values and human rights, that determine the world order. Mr. Turk will know it.