China gets vocal about human rights in Lanka

Tuesday, 19 November 2013 01:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Chinese Government yesterday called on Sri Lanka to protect human rights, dealing Colombo a surprise blow one day after the Commonwealth Summit that was dominated by the country’s rights record drew to a close. Beijing has been the Sri Lankan Government’s most unquestioning ally as its rights record came under increasing international scrutiny. China has asked Sri Lanka to “make efforts to protect and promote human rights” backing calls by India, Britain and other countries at the CHOGM summit in Colombo to address allegations of rights abuses during the final phase of the war, the Press Trust of India reported. “Due to the differences in the economic and social development of different countries, there could be differences on human rights protection,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a media briefing in Beijing yesterday. “So what is important is that the relevant country should make efforts to protect and promote human rights while other countries in the world should provide constructive assistance,” he said.

He was replying to a question on human rights issues clouding the just-concluded CHOGM summit and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement that his country will push for an international probe by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) if Sri Lanka does not address its human rights issues by March next year. “This is an issue within the Commonwealth. But at the same time, I believe that on the human rights issue, dialogue and communication should be enhanced among countries,” Qin said. “We always maintained that on the human rights issues, countries around the world should enhance mutual understanding through dialogue and communication and take constructive means to promote the development of the international human rights cause,” he said. This is perhaps for the first time that China was vocal about Sri Lanka addressing the human rights issue. In recent years, Beijing has beefed up its ties with Colombo with billions of dollars of aid and voted against the resolutions passed by UNHRC in 2011 and 2012 censuring Colombo for its alleged rights violations during the war against the LTTE. Qin’s comments came as China was elected to the UNHRC this year and is expected to play a role if Cameron decides to implement his ultimatum to Sri Lanka to deal with its human rights issues by March 2014 failing which the UK will work with the UNHRC to push for international investigations into alleged war crimes against the Sri Lankan Tamils.