Zero draft of SL resolution calls for OHCHR to ‘consolidate and preserve’ war-time abuse evidence

Saturday, 20 February 2021 00:48 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Govt. will oppose call for OHCHR to preserve evidence, wants removal of 13A reference
Activists call early draft “weak” and disappointing
Draft likely to be revised significantly before vote in March

An early draft of the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka has called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to preserve and analyse evidence on alleged war-time abuses in preparation for future trials.

A ‘zero draft’ of the UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka, which is subject to revision, calls on High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s office to “consolidate, analyse and preserve” evidence.

The OHCHR evidence reservation mechanism is the most salient feature of the draft resolution in its current form, even as fears mount locally and internationally that evidence gathered in cases identified as ‘emblematic’ by the UN could be compromised or lost.

Human rights organisations have called for a Syria-style International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to be set up on Sri Lanka by the Human Rights Council to preserve and gather evidence on alleged war crimes and violations.

The draft resolution noted the persistent lack of accountability through domestic mechanisms and said the new Commission of Inquiry set up by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to go into the findings of commissions previously set up to study human rights issues as lacking in independence.

Daily FT learns that the Government will object strongly to the OHCHR evidence preservation mechanism in the draft resolution. Sri Lanka is also objecting to the reference to the 13th Amendment in the UNHRC draft resolution currently in circulation, Daily FT learns.

Senior Government Ministers have called for the provincial council system set up by the 13th Amendment to be scrapped, a move likely to irk New Delhi.

The draft resolution calls on Bachelet’s office to provide a written report on Sri Lanka’s compliance with the resolution by March 2022, with a comprehensive report due in September 2022, when the resolution will come up for review.

Despite a damning report by High Commissioner Bachelet calling for decisive international action to prevent a human rights disaster in Sri Lanka, the current draft resolution falls far short of her recommendations, activists said.

“The draft resolution is fundamentally weak and extremely disappointing,” Attorney-at-Law and former Senior Law Lecturer at the Jaffna University Dr. Kumaravadivel Guruparan told Tamil Guardian.

“The Core Group has not taken the recommendations of the High Commissioner seriously and has ignored calls from victims for decisive action,” he added.

This week, a group of 20 eminent persons, including former UN High Commissioners on Human Rights, experts and former heads of state, called for action from the UN Human Rights Council on Sri Lanka. “The international community failed Sri Lanka in 2009,” the open letter to the Council said. “We cannot fail again.”