UN Panel on Sri Lanka:

It’s intimidation, says Dr Kohona

Wijitha NAKKAWITA and Lakshmi DE SILVA

The panel of experts on Sri Lanka to advice UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was an attempt to intimidate the weak and meek nations but was not called for by the member states of the UN body, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Palitha Kohona told Daily News yesterday.

Dr. Kohona currently in Colombo said the Non Aligned Movement too had protested to the UN Secretary General about this unacceptable decision as he seemed to be influenced by certain NGO lobbies but the UN was an organization of sovereign nation states and not NGOs.

Matters concerning Sri Lanka with regard to the final phase of the humanitarian operations were taken up at the appropriate UN organ the Human Rights Council and a motion was carried in favour of Sri Lanka with 29 member nations voting for us while only 12 members voted against us, he said.

There were other regions where thousands of human rights violations were taking place daily but the UN Secretary General seemed to be reluctant to take up these issues as some powerful and rich nations were involved in those regions.

But Ban Ki Moon seemed to have ignored such violations, he noted.

Dr. Kohona said there were only a handful of nations that may be in agreement with the move against our country but the vast majority of the member nations have expressed their opposition to this move.

NAM comprises 117 nations out of the 192 member states of the UN and NAM had objected to the move by the Secretary General.

In the case of appointment of panels by the UN it had been done either at the request of the UN legislative organs or at the request of the country itself. But in this case it was not so.