Sunday March 11, 2012
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| By Our Political Editor |
 The SOS message arrived after Sri Lanka's 52-member delegation -- which was a heavy burden on the country's purse -- returned to Colombo early this week from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions in Geneva.The breather from the on-going 19th sessions was in the belief that the United States-backed resolution on Sri Lanka would be moved only later this month. So much so, the delegation leader, the President's human rights special envoy and Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe chose to undertake a visit to Japan, return to Colombo and later get back to Geneva. That visit was connected to issues over tea in his capacity as Minister of Plantation Industries. This was whilst the Minister of External Affairs continued his South African safari -- an odyssey that has turned out to be a tragi-comedy in the conduct of Sri Lanka's foreign policy. More chapters unfolded this week. Tamara Kunanayakam, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, rang the alarm bell. The United States had sprung a surprise. As revealed exclusively in these columns last week that it would happen come Wednesday, the official text of the US-backed resolution was handed over to the conference secretariat on that day for inclusion in the agenda. That, however, seemed a shock and surprise for the Sri Lanka mission, which shows how out of touch it was with the happenings around it. The next day, (Thursday), the United States Ambassador for Human Rights Council, Eileen Chamberlain Donahue, called an 'informal consultation' to which all Geneva-based missions and UNHRC delegates were invited. In the light of this, Mohan Peiris, legal advisor to the Cabinet, hurriedly boarded a flight to Geneva on Wednesday. |
