Duties and rights - a winning combination

It augurs well for Sri Lanka that the Government is maintaining a sustained and continuing interest in its human rights obligations.

It is this scrupulous adherence to human rights norms and standards which compelled the State to ensure that the new law and order measures promulgated by it to curb terrorism, conformed closely to its human rights obligations and duties enshrined in the numerous UN rights conventions to which the State has been a signatory.

This is a track record the State could be proud of on International Human Rights Day, which falls today.

It is appropriate that those persons and groups which champion causes with human rights implications pause to consider whether they are equally sensitive to their obligations and duties towards the State and the people.

We need hardly reiterate that rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. One cannot champion rights at the expense of obligations and duties and vice versa.

The new law and order measures promulgated by the Government, we hope, would alert them to these considerations. If one is to enjoy one's rights, then, there needs to be an equally zealous adherence to duties.

There could be no debate, for example, over the need to continuously uphold and cherish the unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.

No compromises could be made over this principle and any kind of rights cannot be championed and advanced at its cost. This is one of the rationales for the new measures the State has been obliged to take to defeat terrorism.

However, as mentioned before, the State has ensured that these measures are in strict conformance to its UN human rights obligations.

Therefore, the current UN-sanctioned, international human rights regime is being continuously sustained and upheld by the Government.

We need hardly say that the Government's approach to these issues is in marked contrast to that of the terroristic LTTE.

Whereas the State is going more than the extra mile to ensure the well-being of the North-East people, the Tigers are continuing with the inhuman practice of using them as human shields in their confrontations with the State. This is happening at present in the East, for instance.

The Tigers have also unloaded their big guns, apparently, at a human settlement in Trincomalee recently cruelly snuffing out the lives of several civilians. In fact a school was targeted in this attack.

Those campaigning zealously for the promotion and strengthening of human rights in this country need to take cognizance of these gross violation of almost every conceivable right by the LTTE.

Such rights champions cannot take the view, for example, that the LTTE could be exempted from these obligations to uphold rights because it is a non-State actor.

This line of thinking does not hold water when it is considered that the LTTE is signatory to the CFA which carries a host of obligations and duties. The international community is, therefore, obliged to ensure that the Tigers rigorously adhere to rights norms.

The problem with the world community is that it is not going about this responsibility with the needed vigour. We call on it to come down heavily uncompromisingly on the LTTE on rights issues.

A reluctance to do this would only be a fillip to more gruesome, Tiger-inspired human tragedies.

We believe days like today need to be used by the international community to draw the attention of all concerned to the relevant dimensions in human rights law.

Besides rights going with responsibilities, socio-economic rights invariably go along with civil and political rights. Some of these cannot be championed to the exclusion of the rest.

All these rights categories complement each other and this needs to be emphasised.

Curbing terrorism - some practical issues

Studies have shown that stringent measures, when adopted against a particular type of crime belonging to a generic group (such as hijacking in the spectrum of unlawful interference against civil aviation) would be effective enough to reduce that particular type of crime. However, it might give rise to increase in other forms of crime belonging to that generic group.

Full Story

Mahinda's message and the Majority Report

PRESIDENT Rajapaksa's speech on terrorism demonstrated resolute political will, and represented real leadership. It presented the case of the Sri Lankan democratic state to the world, while placing the Tigers in the dock for their campaign of aggression. It was the kind of speech that the country requires at this moment in its history,

Full Story

Sonia Gandhi an Indian Icon

The All-India Congress President Sonia Gandhi, has reached her sixtieth year, now. She was born in Orbassano, on the outskirts of Turin, an industrial City in northern Italy on December 9, 1946 as the second daughter of Stephano Maino and Paola.

Full Story