Sri Lanka has much to offer world - minister

Text of the speech delivered by Minister of Plantation Industries and Special Envoy of the President on Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe at the eighth annual Sujata Jayawadena memorial oration titled 'Human Rights: International Challenges for Sri Lanka' held at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo, yesterday

It is indeed a great privilege to be asked to deliver the eighth annual Sujata Jayawardena memorial oration - honouring a distinguished Sri Lankan personality and celebrating her contribution to our people, our culture and our country. Honouring the memory of such a person in such a manner does not only give us occasion to draw lessons from her life and work, that are instructive and relevant in today's context; it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on some of the most significant questions facing contemporary Sri Lanka. Looking at the list of speakers who have delivered the oration on the past seven occasions, this event is evolving into a forum for discussion of some of the most important issues of the day. The Alumni Association of the University of Colombo are to be congratulated for organizing and supporting this oration.

One feature that stands out in the life of the late Sujata Jayawardena is her intense engagement with her community and her society. Whether it be nurturing her family, her involvement with the arts, the media, the Alumni Association and various philanthropic causes, she was dedicated to giving of her all to achieve the best of results. She was committed to giving people the opportunity to improve their prospects through practical measures and her efforts with the Alumni Association exemplify this aspect of her vision. The Buller's Lane Hostel stands as an enduring testimony to her dedication and effort. It is through this kind of engagement in wider society that individual members can contribute to the general uplift of the community. Mrs Jayawardena's life and work, characterized by kindness and compassion, serve as an example to all of us.

Foreign policy experts

I am privileged today to share with you some thoughts on an issue critical to Sri Lanka. It is one which we are all concerned with. It is my hope that my comments today will add to the current discourse on human rights in Sri Lanka and that we can continue this dialogue in a constructive manner for the benefit of our country and her people. This is a theme which concerns each and every one in this room and is a debate in which all of you should participate. It is not only for academics, diplomats and foreign policy experts to mull on, but demands the attention of every right-thinking person who cares about our motherland.

Participation and engagement are at the core of human rights. This is true of the realization of human rights at the domestic level as well as on the international plane. Sri Lanka today stands at the crossroads. We have reached a critical juncture in our nation's destiny. Human rights protection is one facet of a complex combination of factors that will determine our future prospects for security, peace, development and a better future. A nation that is divided along political, socio-economic, cultural or religious lines can never hope to fulfil its potential. Unity of purpose and identification with a greater collective goal is a must if Sri Lanka is to reap the full benefit of the defeat of terrorism and the end of internecine strife.

There is much Sri Lanka has to offer the world and the community of nations. Our experience in overcoming nearly 30 years of violence and the ushering in of a new era of prosperity and wellbeing for all will provide a model for other societies afflicted by conflict. However, we must first achieve developmental and other targets we have set for ourselves and also overcome the challenges that face us. Foremost among these is the transformation of the international perspective of Sri Lanka as a nation that fails to guarantee human rights in full measure to its people.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka's image in the eyes of the world has suffered mainly due to the battle against terrorism. Long drawn out internal conflict necessarily has a deleterious impact on society. Its institutional underpinnings and its core societal values are put under tremendous strain. It is truly remarkable that we have emerged from three decades of conflict with our governance systems, our commitment to democracy and, above all, our social cohesion largely intact. This gives us a springboard to launch ourselves confidently into the future. However, we must keep in mind that very real challenges remain and, if unaddressed, will make this process of national renewal more difficult.

I will focus on one of those challenges: that of dealing with human rights issues on the international plane. By human rights I do not mean a narrow legalistic meaning of the term but the entire gamut of the international human rights system. This involves not only the normative framework and the international institutions that have developed around that framework. It involves the entire scope of our dealings with the international community to which the discourse on human rights is inextricably linked. This also includes international non-governmental organizations, academia, the media and civil society. Our main challenge is to foster a sea-change in international attitudes which goes far beyond what has been termed 'image building'. We must also be aware of and carefully consider new initiatives in this sphere and consider their implications for the national interest.

It is fruitless to take defensive positions and isolationist stances when facing our critics. Our best chance of success lies in engagement. This is not to take action that will prejudice national sovereignty and our right to deal with matters within our domestic jurisdiction. Our engagement need not be shy and diffident. We need not apologize for our actions or be equivocal about our record. Often developing countries rely on cultural relativism and attempt to portray the international human rights system as being foisted upon them by others. This is not totally without merit.

It is undeniable that modern conceptions of human rights coalesced in the post-World War II era and are mostly the product of a handful of countries. Despite the existence of eastern concepts related to governance and human rights from ancient times, such as the Cylinder of Cyrus and the Rock Edicts of the Emperor Ashoka, the modern concept of human rights, as Professor Lynn Hunt of UCLA demonstrates, is undoubtedly western in origin. It is equally true that power blocs have sometimes cynically used human rights as levers for attaining economic, geo-strategic and political goals.

This usage of human rights as a lever or excuse for intrusive measures have left many in the developing world cautious and, even suspicious, of human rights advocacy and advocates even where such initiatives emanate from within the developing world. There is no gainsaying the fact that human rights have been used as a tool for pressurizing governments and justifying the intervention in internal affairs of countries.

The expanded concept of the responsibility to protect or R2P is just one such conceptual tool. The countries that are economically advanced, wield enormous influence and profess themselves to be "civilized nations", which use humanitarian intervention and human rights protection as an instrument to attain their foreign policy goals. Often the targets are weaker nations outside the "club" of elites.

Double standards

Especially for a country such as Sri Lanka which is a State Party to seven of the core human rights treaties and several ILO conventions, the arguments based on narrow concepts of state sovereignty and cultural relativism ring hollow. Our action in ratifying or acceding to these instruments was in itself an exercise of sovereignty. Our engagement on human rights with the international system is therefore based on undertakings that we willingly and voluntarily made. Our commitment to the principles of ensuring all rights: civil, political, economic, social and cultural including the right to development; in keeping with these international treaties, is unwavering. As state parties, we accept a degree of scrutiny of the implementation and realization of treaty rights within our borders.

However, as I pointed out, this does not mean that Sri Lanka or any other developing nation must permit ad hoc targeting of themselves based on human rights. The international system, if it is to be effective and useful, must operate on the basic principles of objectivity, impartiality, non-selectivity and universality. To paraphrase Orwell, no nation is 'more equal' than others. We are well within our rights to trenchantly demand that a common standard is applied in assessing human rights. In our recent engagement in Geneva and New York we have stressed the need for high officials such as the High Commissioner for Human Rights to be transparent, accountable and fair to all, in dealings with member states.

We strongly opposed the adoption of double standards, in assessing some countries' human rights records. We have worked with like-minded countries, regional and cross-regional groupings to demand more openness in the Office of the High Commissioner. We have been critical of the practice of staffing the Office with persons predominantly from one bloc of nations. The funding arrangements of the High Commissioner's Office and linkages to its activities are mostly opaque and we have urged more transparency in this regard. Through our active engagement, we are working to ensure a more equitable order through reforms of the Council and allied mechanisms.

For our part, we have displayed our total willingness to engage with intergovernmental mechanisms such as the UN Human Rights Council. We have ensured high level representation at successive sessions of the Council since its inception in 2006. I was privileged to lead the delegation as Minister for Human Rights and as Special Envoy for the past five years. We have addressed the plenary, regional groups, cross regional groups such as the Non Aligned countries and the Organization of the Islamic Conference as well as senior officials of the UN system. We have hosted briefing sessions in Geneva on Sri Lanka and invited member states, observers, international non-governmental organizations, members of the Tamil diaspora and UN agencies to attend. Our record of reporting to treaty bodies under the international instruments that I mentioned earlier, has shown a vast improvement. We have then engaged with those bodies in an open dialogue when our reports were taken up for consideration. The Sri Lankan engagement in the Universal Periodic Review process in 2008, under my leadership, was followed up with commitment to concrete action.

This new process of the Human Rights Council required us to prepare a comprehensive brief on human rights in Sri Lanka, to then engage with states who participated in the review, to consider recommendations and suggestions made by those countries and finally to make pledges aimed at further improving our record. We did this in 2008 despite being engaged in an armed conflict against terrorism in the face of an intense propaganda campaign launched by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, its allies and proxies. It was during the period of conflict that we invited two special mandate holders of the UN system - the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons - to visit Sri Lanka. We regularly engage with the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances on cases dating back to the 1980s. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights was invited and visited Sri Lanka in 2007 when I was Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights. We have extended an invitation to the present High Commissioner.

Several Sri Lankan diplomatic representatives, academics and activists through their membership in inter-governmental bodies on issues as varied as terrorism, migrant workers, children's rights, racism and the right to development have raised Sri Lanka's profile and made a contribution to global efforts in the sphere of human rights.

Special session

This open engagement is continuing. We hope to host a side-event in Geneva coinciding with the next session of the Council in March. At the briefing, as always, we expect those interested in Sri Lanka to raise questions to which we are prepared to answer. More importantly, we will participate in the second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review in October where we will inform the Council of progress achieved since the last Review in 2008. We must also take steps to ensure the upgrading of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka to full member status within the International Coordinating Committee of national human rights institutions.

Our principled stand and openness has won us the support of many nations despite the efforts of some to question Sri Lanka's record. We were able to ensure that a resolution targeting Sri Lanka never won the approval of the Council. Even when a Special Session on Sri Lanka was held in 2009, we were able to garner support which gave as a clear majority supporting our own Resolution calling for assistance to the country rather than the one critical of Sri Lanka. This year, we were able to prevent a premature discussion of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in the Council. The fundamentally flawed report on Sri Lanka by the Secretary General's Advisory Panel of Experts was forwarded to the Council in September. Due to our prompt action, the distribution of this document, which was not mandated by any inter-governmental body, was prevented. Even an attempt to present it for purposes of information was successfully objected to. In the past, there were consistent to establish an Office of the High Commissioner in Sri Lanka which I as the Minister for Human Rights, resisted on behalf of the government, on the grounds that it was not required at that juncture.

I have largely concentrated on the multilateral side of external relations concerning human rights issues vis-…-vis Sri Lanka. However, there are two other important aspects to consider. The first is dealing bilaterally or directly with governments and groups that have an interest in or express their views with regard to the situation in Sri Lanka. Chief among these are those countries that have a large presence of Sri Lankan expatriates who are supporters of the separatist cause and use every means at their disposal to bring pressure to bear on Sri Lanka. These persons, are part of a global network of organizations - some of which are proscribed - which continue to spew out falsehoods and exaggerations of violations of human rights to embarrass the government. Having witnessed the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, they appear determined to pursue an agenda inimical to Sri Lanka and, especially, its Tamil citizens who are now able to benefit from reconstruction and development in the post-armed conflict era.

These persons must be engaged and they must be convinced of the genuine attempts at reconciliation and the forging of national unity.

There are others too who hold extreme points of view and, whilst vehemently opposed to terrorism unleashed in Sri Lanka, must now temper their rhetoric with a view to bridging the divide, which can only delay the healing of national wounds suffered over the past three decades. Our diplomatic missions have undertaken several efforts in this connection, and I have met with groups of expatriates to outline and explain the Government's position and initiatives.

These groups must be made aware of the opportunities that exist to invest in their country, to give of their knowledge and experience in aiding development and to support genuine reconciliation. More effort and resources should be dedicated to this exercise particularly by the innovative use of information and communication technologies. What is necessary now is not an attritional trading of accusation and counter accusation, propaganda and refutation, but instead a dialogue based on trust and mutual respect.

To be continued