WHO SAYS WE HAVE TO IMPLEMENT ‘OUR OWN LLRC REPORT’ IN FULL?

Why isn’t your government implementing its own LLRC recommendations? That’s the refrain of those who have made the Geneva UNHRC sessions an article of faith, to coax the Sri Lankan nation to take cognizance of reconciliation issues after the war.

In pursuance of that task, they say that there are so many recommendations in the LLRC report which have been itemized in the National Action Plan, that have not been implemented.

The LLRC report happens to be one that went far beyond the ‘reconciliation’ mandate. Well and good. It appears to have been a well-intentioned document that included a recipe for action on all of the issues that came up in the lengthy public representations that were made before it.

The LLRC document made recommendations on the Freedom of Information Act, and on discontinuing recourse to the Vagrancy Ordinance, to arrest women indulging in prostitution, for example.

LLRC recommendations

These recommendations are in the main, forward looking to a great extent -- and are ideal for an ideal situation.

But, the LLRC recommendations were supposed to be those that concerned reconciliation and lessons learnt. Then there were recommendations that were supposed to deal with human rights in a post war context.

It is not to speak pejoratively of the LLRC to say that some of its recommendations had little or nothing to do with these aspects of Sri Lanka’s post war reality, however. What really does Vagrancy have to do with the post-war reconciliation process?

The Freedom of Information Act? Does the UN Human Rights Council for example, agitate for enacting a Freedom of Information Act in Singapore, for instance?

Simply put, the bulk of the LLRC recommendations in the National Action Plan that have not been implemented, are those that have little or nothing to do with the issues of reconciliation or human rights, in a context of global oversight.

Press freedom

If there was international oversight over issues such as a Freedom of Information Act, there would have been sanctions on Singapore now for instance, due to the regular and institutionalized repression of press freedom in that country.

So why has Sri Lanka then been singled out for international oversight, on what are essentially evolving domestic governance issues?

To some extent the LLRC report has given the misguided sections of the international community, the license to do this.

Day-to-day governance issues have been ceded out to the UN and its agencies, making use of the false premise that the Sri Lankan government -- post war -- is beholden to implement all provisions of the LLRC report.

However, the pressure to implement the LLRC report in full is something that should alert the international community to the dangers of intrusive international oversight.

Governance issues

It sets a dangerous precedent for future interference on basic governance issues --- for instance.

Take the Indian government, for example. There are several security related factors that make it mandatory that in India, certain rights are kept in abeyance to tackle the problem of Kashmiri resistance for instance.

Imagine India being asked by the UN Human Rights Council to implement countrywide, to the last letter, all constitutional provisions that deal with detention for instance, without exception?

National security imperatives aside, imagine if India is asked by the UN Human Rights Council to legislate on issues such as surrogacy, or rape, as per the UNHRC diktat -- i.e.; on the basis of a council resolution stating that the provisions of a certain document be implemented.

The problem about the LLRC is that it has been sold to the UN by interested parties – INGOs, NGOs - - as a post-war document dealing with war related issues of trust and accountability between communities after years of conflict.

But the document is something else. It is akin to a seminar report on democracy and governance -- and ‘reform’ in general.

Those are things that have to be done in a democracy with public assent through legislative process. Governance cannot be outsourced to the UNHRC.

International community

Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera is therefore not wrong when he compared the LLRC to something akin to the Kandyan Convention by which -- through consenting behaviour -- the elites of this country willingly ceded their sovereignty to a foreign power. It was all done on similar lines. They said it was ‘our document,’ and that it was for ‘our own good.’

The only thing that can be done to disabuse the international community of the notion that the LLRC is a governance document and cannot and should not be implemented in full is to say so loud and clear, and stick to our guns.

For that, we have to say it as it is -- the government of Sri Lanka is not going to outsource legislation to the international community. Neither is it going to outsource legislative initiative to the LLRC for that matter!

Of course the sleight of hand and trickery involved in the UN agencies repeating that the LLRC is a human rights document, and post-war reconciliation article of faith and has to be implemented in full, has to be exposed.

Yes, the government appointed the LLRC. But what the commission came out with constitutes a set of recommendations.

It is a given that all of these provisions do not have to be implemented in full. That will be akin to asking the moderator to take over the debate!