Sri Lanka and the UN
By Adolfo Perez Esquivel
As Latin Americans are well aware, there is a handful of crimes that a State may commit, which by their nature involve removing people regarded as political enemies, never to know more about them. Our region suffered terribly during the dirty war the years’70 and’80, when thousands of our citizens were disappeared, tortured and killed by security forces.
Other countries still suffer from similar abuse of human rights. According to the United Nations (UN), Sri Lanka now has the highest rate of enforced disappearances in the world. For a long time Sri Lanka has faced the threat of terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Over the past two years, the government has opted to use a dirty war against the LTTE using torture on prisoners suspected of having links with the LTTE and the perpetration of hundreds of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions, including humanitarian workers.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel
The Nobel Peace Prize 1980
Incredibly, the government of Sri Lanka is seeking international recognition of their abusive tactics by filing his candidacy for the United Nations Human Rights Council. Even if this council noted in 2006 that the countries elected to demonstrate the highest standards “on human rights and” fully cooperate “with the mechanisms of the Council itself, Sri Lanka has not complied with any of these requirements. For this reason, members of the United Nations should not vote in favour of Sri Lanka in the elections to be held at the UN General Assembly next May 21.
Instead of promoting human rights throughout the world, Sri Lanka has used his position within the Council to avoid scrutiny as a violator of human rights. Among other things, successfully objected to a Council resolution on its human rights situation and refuses to accept that the UN monitor the humanitarian crisis, as recommended by experts in human rights and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The governments of Latin americas can do a great service to the people of Sri Lanka to reject his candidacy to the Human Rights Council.
It should be noted that a precedent already exists within the UN, when the Foreign Minister of Argentina, Jorge Taiana, noted the creation of the Council. Then society argentina suffered the consequences when the former Commission on Human Rights failed to condemn the serious human rights violations committed by the military dictatorship between the years 1976 to 1983.
Americas America can help the suffering people of Sri Lanka, making an international call to those responsible for torture, disappearances and killings in Sri Lanka are properly investigated and prosecuted, as well as refusing to support the reelection of governments responsible for such abuses to the Council Human Rights.
[Translation of Sri Lanka y la ONU, via Google Translate]
