UN Universal Periodic Review

| by Victor Cherubim 

( October 24, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Universal Periodic Review created by Resolution 60/25 of UN General Assembly 15 March 2006 is an assessment of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States, once every four years. The first report of the 1st Session was presented by Bahrain at Geneva, in 2006.

Sri Lanka’s delegation has arrived in Geneva to participate in the 14th session and the date of consideration allocated to us is 1st November 2012 between 2.30 and 6.00 p.m, though the Council meets from October 22 -5 Nov.’12.

Sri Lanka has submitted a National Report to this review with necessary amendments including the latest developments. The Office of the UN Commissioner of Human Rights has made its own investigative report. Member States, including Spain, Canada, Mexico, United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Denmark, have also tabled questions from their own standpoint. Responses to specific follow up requests by Treaty bodies have also raised questions. The job of Sri Lanka’s Presidential envoy for Human Rights, Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe is to face a barrage of questions and convince this august body of our actions.

Sri Lankan envoy has a wide range of experience and expertise attending several sessions prior to this review. He is on record of having challenged and dismantled many arguments, witnesses and issues brought to previous Geneva sessions, particularly by other organisations called Stakeholders including NGO’s NHRI’s, Human Rights defenders, academic institutions, research institutes, regional organisations and civic society representatives in Sri Lanka and abroad. Though UNHRC adopted a resolution on Sri Lanka on accountability issues, by a vote 24 to 15 with 8 abstentions in March 22, 2012, this Periodic Review, is wider in scope.

There is no doubt Sri Lanka has a poor public relations record among HR organisations, partly due the near 30 year war and the atrocities, partly not knowing or believing how to project the facts and figures transparently. Antagonism was encountered by some Big Powers against Sri Lanka for their own reasons. Reputation management agents were also not helpful to win support in March ’12. By failing to give credence over the years to good governance practices, we were pushed on the defensive, into a trap partly of our own making. Thus heavy lobbying by HR organisations together with geo-political considerations carried the day

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process on Sri Lanka is scheduled for the above date. A troika chaired by India and with Spain and Benin as members will review Sri Lanka’s progress in human rights and prepare a report that will be adopted on the 5th November,’12. Our compliance procedure and our late submission of reports will also be assessed and judged.

The issue in question is accountability. The National Report of Sri Lanka and full statement is available for the reader’s information on the OCHR website. It has been prepared in the best way known to Sri Lanka.

It would appear this report as drafted, is a Vision Statement, a composite of all the answers to all previous questions raised on the conduct of the war and its aftermath. Perhaps, we may have overlooked our vulnerability issues, which most human rights bodies, INGO’s, NGO’s seek clarification.

The compliance list is exhaustive, but pertinent issues which are raised repeatedly appear for scrutiny of many other nations with a poor HR record. They include political detainees, arbitrary detention, witness and victim protection, draconian clauses in Prevention of Terrorism law, Torture methods and victims, identifying credible gaps in past government postures on accountability.

Governments are always put on the back foot and are expected to answer these issues by stating “the truth and nothing but the truth,” Many, often succumb to threats and find it near impossible to retrieve their legal positions.

It appears that Sri Lanka continues to maintain that everything was done to the best of our ability, during, at the end and currently to manage a war of attrition over a span of nearly 30 odd years. At the outset, we possibly could have failed to convince we needed time, space and funds to contain, control, compensate any shortgivings, misgivings, and misadventures, which naturally are unforeseen in any war.

Good governance, accountability, transparency are highly desirable attributes of any government.

The duties on governments to observe the rules of war, the guidelines and boundaries of proscription and repression, if they were overlooked, will now need to be enforced   Each nation as signatory to UN Charter provisions and Human Rights, have obligations. Outlining it as a mission statement is inadequate; it clearly has to identify the extent of weakness and non-compliance for an assessment to be critically made.

To highlight one among the several barrages of questions Sri Lanka will have to answer the OHRC at this review, is the issue raised by The Committee against Torture (CAT). It recommended that “all necessary measures be taken to ensure that an enforced disappearance is established as an offence in Sri Lanka law.” A response to this question is awaited.

Human Rights organisations also target torture as motive of government control. It is no secret that torture is used indiscriminately in some states throughout the world. The motives are to obtain confessions, to seek redress, to fight terrorism with terror.HR organisations have a vested interest in exposing various types of torture. They vary in range from ill-treatment, abuse, scare torture, stealth torture to torture death at the extreme.

Torture has probably occurred as long as the history of man, in every country. It will not suffice for our delegation to state that only a sadistic monster will practice a deliberate policy of torture. The Government has to identify what types of torture is neither acceptable nor practiced on victims in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka today is a stable, united forward looking country with traditions over centuries and a civilization to maintain. Omissions and anomalies may exist, but corrective action is always available, given time, space and a turn of mind to do better from our experience.