Human Rights
UN Human Rights Council meeting – Another Farce
Below are excerpts of a 38 page paper by Brian Senewiratne (MA. MD. FRCP.FRACP) of Brisbane, Australia titled UN Human Rights Council Meeting – Another Farce.
Excerpts:
Government sponsored protests against the Resolution
“This is not a document for easy reading, nor is it meant to be. It is a reasonably comprehensive record of the abysmal record of the UN and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in addressing human rights violations. It is being submitted to the UNHRC and will probably end up in a dustbin. So be it.
The 19th Session of this talk-shop started on 27 February 2012 and will go on till 23 March 2012. While people concerned with the serious violations of human rights of the Tamil people by the murderous politico-military junta led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa are hoping that this Meeting will demand an international investigation into war crimes (as suggested by the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Panel of Experts ), I am highly sceptical that it will. The track record of the UN and the UNHRC is such that to believe otherwise is ignorance, if not plain stupidity.
The bombshell has just been dropped, the (UK) Channel 4 News documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished”, a follow-up to the shocking video “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” aired in June 2011. The latter was screened at a special showing in the UN Human Rights Council meeting soon after it was released. It shocked the world and even the hardened diplomats in the UNHRC, some of whom were unable to continue watching the ghastly scenes and turned their heads away (I saw this on a recording of the showing).
The Channel 4 “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished” was shown to a packed audience on 11 March 2012, during the International Human Rights Film Festival in Geneva. It ends with, “Can the cries of thousands of Tamils continue to fall upon deaf ears?”
This latest video could be even more damaging for the GoSL, not only because it shows the cold-blooded execution of the 12 year old son of the Tamil Tiger Leader, Velupillai Prabakaran, executed point-blank, with a gun held not more than a few feet from his bare chest, but also involves the UN itself. The last UN overland food convoy was targeted and subjected to a massive sustained shelling by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. Two of the UN staff were foreigners, one an Australian, Peter Mackay, who in a sworn statement describes how the shelling was re-targeted after the GPS co-ordinates of the site had been given to the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). The resulting carnage was photographed by the UN workers……………
“………………..Nishantha Warnasinghe, leader of the Sinhalese extremist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), told the BBC that his party opposed any ‘concessions’ to Washington and opposed the establishment of the military court of inquiry. The JHU is part of Rajapaksa’s ruling junta.
Housing Minister, Wimal Weerawansa, leader of the equally rabid anti-Tamil party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), called for a boycott of U.S. products. He told a protest meeting that the resolution amounts to calling for the revival of the Tamil Tigers.
The opposition United National Party, which backed Rajapaksa’s war against the Tamils and defended the military’s crimes, is seeking accommodation with Washington. The UNP leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe has called for consensus between the government and the opposition on the implementation of the LLRC recommendations.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), who are there to safeguard the rights of the Tamil people, is likewise manoeuvering. It previously condemned the LLRC report, but now calls for its implementation! As for its contribution (or lack of it) at the UNHRC meeting will be dealt with next.
They are all playing the same game – to hell with the suffering of the Tamil people in the North and East………..”
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