India backs Lanka in UN human rights review
INDIA: India fully backed Sri Lanka in the just-concluded UN
human rights review in Geneva, enabling its neighbour to get a
“balanced” appraisal from the world body on Tuesday.
The appraisal has raised hopes in Sri Lanka that it will be
re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council by the General Assembly in New
York today.
While most of the Western countries attacked Sri Lanka, India
mentioned only the positive aspects of the Sri Lankan situation.
The Indian delegate, Rajiv Kumar Chander, described Sri Lanka as a
“close and friendly neighbour,” which maintained its sovereignty and
territorial integrity, and played an “active role” in the Human Rights
Council.
The Indian delegate said Sri Lanka’s cooperation with the UN system
had been “noteworthy.”
India found Sri Lanka’s argument that its laws were compatible with
international conventions in human and labour rights, “useful,” Chander
said.
He praised Colombo for appointing a steering group to draft a bill of
rights, but wanted to know more about what was being done to build
bridges across ethnic groups through language teaching.
India was silent on the issue of implementing the devolution package
envisaged in the 13th amendment of Sri Lanka’s constitution to solve the
Tamil-Sinhalese political problem even though it was enacted under
Indian pressure in 1987. Interestingly, Pakistan wanted to know whether
there was any progress in its implementation.
A report from Sri Lanka’s Permanent Mission in Geneva said that over
half the 56 delegations that participated in the review praised Colombo
for protecting human rights while fighting terrorism. They were
impressed with Sri Lanka’s frankness about its inadequacies and
appreciated its desire to build capacity with UN help.
Sri Lanka was able to justify its rejection of a UN proposal to set
up a monitoring station on the island to report to the Office of the UN
High Commissioner of Human Rights.
The Sri Lankan Minister for Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, said
the need of the hour was not UN monitoring but indigenous
capacity-building with international help. Newindpress |
