Editorial

If the United Nations was a hapless spectator on matters of international peace and security last week with the reigning superpower calling the shots, a UN visitor was very much centre stage here in Sri Lanka.

The Government rolled out the red carpet for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) this week. A post-visit media release by his office (the OHCHR), in a surge of optimism, describes Sri Lanka at a transformational moment in its “social contract” and transition to a “human rights economy”, becoming a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

The visitor was taken to the northern citadel of Jaffna to meet family members of missing persons from an armed terrorist uprising (which he calls a “civil war”) and shown the recently rediscovered mass graves at Chemmani. He later said he was “encouraged” by the growing space for “memorialisation” of victims, something that is part of a pro-Eelam diaspora campaign and ‘Tamil genocide’ lobby. Parallel to the High Commissioner’s visit, the media campaign of the genocide lobby abroad was on overdrive.

Those clamouring for evidence of ‘whodunnit’ at Chemmani, in the belief that it is the Sri Lankan armed forces, may well be in for a rude shock if it is found out that these remains were among the 150 Tamil youth—of the armed group TELO—who were massacred in 22 camps in the North by the LTTE in April 1986. Or even the EPRLF, which was annihilated also by the LTTE in December that same year in internecine warfare among the terrorist factions.

The UNHCHR attended a ‘Town Hall’ style meeting at the BMICH with carefully hand-picked like-minded ‘stakeholders’, but it was later at a news conference that he was grilled. Asked if, considering his call last August for sanctions against Sri Lankan political leaders and top brass that led the military campaign against a terrorist group, he would recommend it again, he remained studiously noncommittal. He was no doubt expecting a question on the situation in Gaza as well and the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) response to the human rights violations. All he could say was how “heartbreaking” and “distressing” it was.

The endgame to the visit will play out at the September session of the UNHRC, where the shots will be called by the Core Group, a.k.a. Canada/UK. No one, not least the Government should expect the visitor’s report to the Council to go slow on Sri Lanka. In his media release he expresses his hope that the Sri Lanka accountability project functioning under his office (which has been strongly opposed by the Government) “can support future accountability efforts, both in Sri Lanka and internationally”.

The Government needs to proceed with clarity. The visitor has recognised the ‘domestic mechanism’ framework preferred by the Government. His way forward, hinted at in the post-visit press release and most likely already coordinated with the Core Group, speaks of a domestic mechanism “complemented and supported by international means”.

It is to be seen how successful the Government, already overstretched in its multiple ‘clean up’ administrative structures, will be firstly in operationalising such a framework and secondly, how it will obtain ‘buy in’ from the two extremes—on the one hand, minority Tamil parties in Sri Lanka pushing for international accountability supported by the pro-Eelam diaspora lobby; and on the other hand, the nationalist lobby opposing punitive accountability mechanisms against the Sri Lankan armed forces which successfully defeated the division of the country.

The Government’s position on the follow-up to the visit is to be seen. The President’s office has conceded that the ruling party entertain an element of sympathy for those who faced counter-terrorism measures of the armed forces given their own revolutionary past. Others believe it is much deeper—that the Government has an unwritten ‘pact’ with the pro-Eelam diaspora that is baying for Sri Lanka—in the genuine yet possibly naive hope of ‘turning things around’ and bringing about true reconciliation.

The High Commissioner is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The irony of him flying to Sri Lanka against the backdrop of the public genocide in Gaza will not be lost on many countries of the world’s South at the UN Human Rights Council. In parallel to the credibility crisis of the OHCHR—the visitor’s office—it is being asphyxiated by financial cuts.

The UN human rights machinery badly needs a success story as proof of even marginal relevance in today’s world—what their press release calls a “quick win”. Stability and peace in Sri Lanka must not be a casualty in the process.

With US calling the shots, is UN made irrelevant?

US President Donald Trump appears to revel in his latest role as the man who declares war and peace in the world. While the United Nations, hitherto the world’s supposed peacekeepers, stood as helpless spectators due to the US veto towards any peace efforts, especially in West Asia, Mr. Trump declared war on Iran, unleashing bunker-busting ordnance on its nuclear sites and boasting about its questionable success. Two days later, the President announced a ceasefire between the two warring nations, Iran and Israel, which seems to be being obeyed. He comes out of the smouldering wreck he created smelling of roses as a peacemaker between two crazed nations at war, as he then calls them.

On Friday, he announced brokering a peace deal between the DR of Congo and Rwanda flanked by their two foreign ministers, however genuine or superfluous it may turn out to be. He gave Qatar little credit for its role in bringing the two nations together.

Pakistan, a frenemy of Iran, praised the US President for his “stellar statesmanship” in stopping the recent Indo-Pakistan warfare—which Mr. Trump reiterated on Friday he stopped. This has angered India, which strenuously denied any US role in calling the skirmish off and strained relations between Delhi and Washington. Pakistan’s well-thought-out diplomatic strategy won for them what they wanted, even if it was a complete betrayal of the Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza.

As far as the Israel-Iran conflict goes, it could have turned the entire world economy topsy-turvy. A ceasefire called by the US President after the week-long bloodletting has saved the world from turmoil.

And the United Nations is looking increasingly irrelevant in this new world order. World leaders are getting accustomed to how the man in the hot seat at the White House Oval Office in Washington, DC, pulls the strings.