By Charles.S.Perera

UNO has failed in the mission expected of it,  by those who originally set it up as an International Organisation after the bitter experience of the World Wars.  UNO was expected to be independent, strictly above any influence by any one of its member states or another, to maintain peace in the world and avoid conflicts among Nations. 

Though UNO was seen to be losing its independence for some time, it  became  evident  since Ban Ki Moon became its  Secretary General.  Since then UNO is a  powerless institution, unable  to protect its member Sovereign States from being subjected to  undue interference by bigger Member States, while others were used as  tools of the economical heavy weights of the West.  

The USA waged war against Iraq and ended up hanging its President Sadam Hussain  despite the UNO. Libya was incessantly bombed and its Leader Colonel Gaddafi was hunted like a criminal and assassinated. But these International outlaws”  with their military power have become today’s defenders of human rights. 

The USA punished countries by  declaring trade sanctions ,without any consultations with the UNO. Half a million children died as a result in Iraq. When the then US  Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked Whether the sacrifice was worth it she said, the choice was difficult but the sacrifice was worth it. That is the mentality of these defenders of human rights presenting themselves at the UNHuman Rights Council Sessions in Geneva to accuse Sri Lanka for violation of human rights.

The USA carried out violations of human rights everywhere in the world,  in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya. But the USA never came before the  UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, accused for  its crimes committed against humanity. Therefore the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights  should be ashamed  of accusing Sri Lanka for violation of human rights based on a report-Darusman Report,  which has no right to be presented as an official Document.  

It is with this background  that the credibility of the UN Human Rights Commissioner, and  the UN Human Rights Commission should be evaluated.  In reality the UN HRC in Geneva has lost its credibility as a Sister Organisation of UNO to the extent one does not know who really runs it. The last President of the USA Mr. Donal Trump called it a cesspit. But the USA cannot go behind the fact that it was they who made that of it. 

But from the gathering of large numbers of  the Tamil Diaspora in Geneva during the UN Human Rights Council Sessions and the main subject taken for discussion being Sri Lanka, it appears as if the  whole UNHRCouncil Session in Geneva is organised for the Tamil Diaspora.  Behind all this there is surely a  greater role being played out by those interested for political leadership of the world.

But normally the role of the UNHRCommission  in Geneva is to settle problems without harassment of Sovereign States,  being careful not to put  minority Communities against the majority Community in any one Sovereign State. But it is the just the opposite that is taking place. 

Sri Lanka and the successive  High Commissioners for Human Rights of UN in Geneva.

 Sri Lanka had no problem with the UNHCHR in Geneva when the people of the three Communities- the Sinhla, Tamil and Muslim  of Sri Lanka were  suffering for 30 years under a ruthless terrorism commenced by a group of Tamil Youth. The terrorists  massacred men women and children, sliced open the stomachs of pregnant women, snached children from the arms of mothers and smashed them on the ground, set claymore  bombs  in buses and marketplaces killing many innocent people, stopped a bus carrying a group of young Buddhist monks  and massacred all of them. On a full moon day when the Buddhists pilgrims were making their prayer at the Sacred Bo tree the terrorists attacked them killing them all, the terrorists bombed the most sacred Temple of the Tooth.

The Tamils who had migrated to Western Countries-USA, Canada,UK,Netherlands, France collected funds for the terrorist war in Sri Lanka and bought arms and ammunition. The Tamil diaspora as they were called  forming a considerable voting  population in those respective countries became the Tamil terrorist lobby able to influence the  politicians of those countries, putting them against the Government of Sri Lanka.   

It’s the Tamil terrorist Lobby that changed the  Western political attitude towards Sri Lanka,  the UN and the UN High Commissioners for Human Rights followed suit taking a sympathetic view of terrorism in Sri Lanka;  who they interpreted were in fact  not their terrorists but terrorists of Sri Lanka !!!. 

 Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2004 to 2008 was a Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada. There was a significant number of  Tamil voters  in Canada who formed  a strong  Tamil terrorist lobby,  working for the terrorists. Hence we had the  UN Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva showing sympathy towards  the terrorists, and  against the Government of Sri Lanka.  She preferred to hear what the Tamil terrorist  lobby had to say rather than listen to the Government of Sri Lanka,   which for her was the aggressor violating the human rights of the Tamil terrorists and the Tamils.

The worst situation arose with the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights  who followed Louise Arbour.  She was Navi Pillai- 2008 to 2014,  a  Judge of the High Court of South Africa. She was a Tamil  like the terrorists.  In South Africa; as a  Tamil, she was a victim of apartheid. Therefore, she was sympathetic towards the Tamil terrorists in Sri, Lanka. She may have thought the Sinhala Government of Sri Lanka was like the apartheid regime of South Afrika. She took every action possible to help the terrorists. What better way could be there than to accuse the Armed Forces readying  to eliminate  terrorism in Sri Lanka for violation of human rights and for war crimes in addition.  

In UNHCHR Navi Pillai”s search for some  material to take the heat away from the terrorists  and turn tables on the Armed Forces of Sri lanka,  Ban Ki Moon the Secretary General of UN handed over to her the strictly private report which he had got a committee  he had appointed  with  Darusman as its head to prepare on terrorism in Sri Lanka for his private information. It was a report prepared at the UN Head Quarters collecting information through emails, telephone messages and such other unreliable sources. It was  an imagined story of what may  probably be going on in Sri Lanka  during  the military operations against terrorism. 

However, this was a”god sent” to Navi Pillai who immediately made it an official document”. Its non validity as a legal or official document is evident from the stipulation in it that the names of those who provided evidence to prepare the report should not be revealed for 20 years and that the evidence cannot be challenged. No sane person could normally make such a document official. But Navi Pillai in her search to  clear the terrorists,  and accuse the Armed Forces would stop at nothing. It is this bogus ad hoc report that states during the last phase of the war 40,000 civilians were killed by the Armed Forces.  

This was an unbelievable statement that was repeated by Navi Pillai and shamelessly repeated  by the UN Highcommissioner for Human Right who followed Navi Pillai, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. Not only was it produced as an official document  but was handed over to a British TV Channel  which  even produced a film  with it giving wide publicity to a completely false story of  war against terrorism in Sri Lanka based on the Darusman Report,  showing  film footage of how the Armed Forces of the Government were  treating the war prisoners, and how civilians have been killed in large numbers  

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On this false propaganda being carried out  against the Government Armed Forces,  the respected British Parliamentarian Lord Naseby vehemently disagreed with the claims set forth in the Darusman Report. He maintained there was no governmental intent to kill Tamil civilians and disputed the estimate of 40,000 civilian deaths in the Report.

And he provided evidence supporting his position: an unpublished report from the United Nations Country Team,  and dispatches from the British Defence attaché at the time, Lieutenant Colonel Anton Gash;  which stated that from August 2008 up to 13 May 2009, the number of civilians killed was 7,721. The war ended six days later, so it cannot possibly have got up to 40,000.
He added that Gordon Weiss, the former UN Spokesman, estimated 7,000 civilian deaths in 2009, a number which aligns with that concluded by the Sri Lankan government’s census department, as well as the estimates of then-US Ambassador Blake and UK Major General John Holmes.

Sri Lanka Armed Forces are a well disciplined dedicated Force, which  went to fight against terrorism and not against Tamil Civilians. On this Lord Neseby has asserted :  that above all, all the people I have cited state that there was no policy to kill civilians—in fact, the opposite.”

To this end, he explained the process he went through to attain dispatches sent during the last few months of the war from British Defence attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Anton Gash, who Naseby claimed said to him in January 2009 that he was surprised at the controlled discipline and success of the Sri Lankan Army and in particular the care that it was taking to encourage civilians to escape and how well they were looked after, and that certainly there was no policy to kill civilians.