Geneva arena, Mahinda Rajapaksa returns to Ruhuna, Sri Lanka-Nepal outcomes

BRISTLING with misplaced arrogance as always, JVP theoretician and NPP Minister Bimal Rathnayake boasted in Parliament that 43 countries had spoken in favour of Sri Lanka after Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath’s address to the UNHRC in Geneva following UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Turk’s Report. Bimal seems unaware that 43 is not the most relevant figure. While all 193 UN member states are present in Geneva and have the right to speak, only 47 of the 193 have been elected members of the UNHRC with full voting rights at any given time.

- By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Therefore, the relevant question is how many of the 43 countries that spoke in support of Vijitha Herath’s stand, currently enjoy UNHRC ‘member state’ status with voting rights? How many of the 43 can vote at this session?

The answer is 14. That’s way less than half, and slightly under a third.

As of now, it appears doubtful that even after a year in office, President Anura Dissanayake’s JVP-NPP administration is able to position itself to pull Sri Lanka out of the losing spiral at the UNHRC Geneva we plunged into during the (Gotabaya-influenced) second Rajapaksa term through to the Gota and Ranil presidencies, corkscrewing from a winning high of 29 votes in May 2009, to 15 (2012), 13 (2013), 12 (2014), 11 (2021), 7 (2022) and 12 (2023) votes.

In 2006 the European Union (EU), through Finland, submitted a draft resolution on Sri Lanka demanding a field presence of the office of the High Commissioner in the country (A/HRC/2/L.37). This early date, when the State had hardly begun its fightback, reveals the hypocrisy of the Western assertion that its interventionist UNHRC resolutions are due to massive war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Sri Lankan State during the closing stages of the war. How can that explain a 2006 EU draft resolution?

I was Sri Lanka’s Ambassador/Permanent Representative to the UN Geneva from 2007 to 2009. The 2006 EU draft Resolution was on the agenda when I took over. By 2009 we had won a 29-12 victory at the UNHRC against the EU ‘led from behind’ by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (as proved by the May 4th 2009 cablegram of directives signed by her, to the US Mission in Geneva, exposed by Wikileaks).