UNHRC sessions in Geneva:
Mahinda Samarasinghe leads SL delegation
CHAMIKARA WEERASINGHE
Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe will head the
delegation for United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva
this March. He is due to address the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva
on February 27 at 11.50 am (4.30 pm Sri Lankan time).
Presidential spokesman Mohan Samaranayaka yesterday said President
Mahinda Rajapaksa nominated
Samarasinghe as the leader of the delegation to Geneva.
There was no decision as such to include a minister for this year's
UNHRC sessions until yesterday, he said. Asked about the delay in
nominating a minister for the delegation to attend the UNHRC sessions,
Samaranayaka said : "I do not know about that, but the decision to
include a minister came late last night from the President."
Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe is one of the most experienced and well
versed envoys in diplomacy, he said. Samaranaya said the team headed by
Minister Samarasinghe to the UNHRC comprise officials of External
Affairs Ministry and the Attorney General's Department. Commenting on
the delegation's makeup, he said the team appointed to represent Sri
Lanka at the Geneva Human Rights sessions, is a high profile team.
"The team is well prepared and up to the task to face any
challenges," he said. "They have the capacity, the knowledge and the
experience to present Sri Lanka's case at the UNHRC sessions," he said.
Meanwhile, External Affairs Ministry Secretary Karunathilaka
Amunugama said they are preparing a detailed report on the progress Sri
Lanka has made in achieving its post-war reconciliation goals to be
presented to the Human Rights Council. "It will outline the
implementation process of the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation Committee report.
We asked Mohan Samamaranayaka about chances that Sri Lanka might be
put in a tight corner at the upcoming Geneva sessions in the light of
various possibilities as such that US might move another resolution
against Sri Lanka and that Channel Four might release what they describe
as a follow-up film to their earlier version of alleged war crimes in
Sri Lanka.
Samaranayaka said none of these charges are new to Sri Lanka. We are
no strangers to Channel Four war crimes disclosure threats or
US-sponsored resolutions," he said. "The government has seen these
threats and resolutions for sometime now. Similarly, there will be those
NGOs with pro-LTTE diaspora support, whose role, as we all know, has
been to discredit the government at every UNHRC session on any given
year and some countries that have sympathized with the LTTE, and some
countries that have been misled to develop antipathy towards Sri Lanka."
"The activities of these groups are at the peak, whenever there is a
UN Human Rights Council session, and their activities are carried out
with a focus to put the government in a tight corner to achieve their
separatist political ends," he said.
Meanwhile, the Tamil National Alliance reportedly submitted a letter
to the UN criticizing the government. Samaranayaka said, "They did this
last year as well. There is nothing new about these actions."
"The officials appointed to participate in the upcoming Geneva
sessions are good enough to address such eventualities with their
extensive experience in similar matters," he added.
"This team will inform all UN member countries in detail what the
government has done and achieved through its national reconciliation
effort as with the implementation of the recommendations in the Lessons
Learned and Reconciliation Commission report," Amunugama said. |