CNN-IBN

New Delhi: India is likely to vote against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council later in March, sources said on Tuesday. The US-sponsored resolution is like to be "procedural" and will not be "intrusive remedy", the sources added.

Experts say that the reason why India may vote against its neighbouring country is because it feels Sri Lanka has not adequately met its own assurances made to the international community.

Secondly, India will not accept an "intrusive" resolution and this resolution is not expected to seek international monitoring of Sri Lanka's efforts.

Thirdly, India is mindful of political sentiment in Tamil Nadu.

Time to suspend Sri Lanka from CHOGM

March 5, 2013

FMT LETTER: From Alagaratnam Jeya Balan, via e-mail

Sri Lanka has undermined the rule of law, violated human rights, democracy, freedom of speech and expression resulting in disastrous consequences to the country. A panel of experts appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise him on the issue of accountability with regard to any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the civil war found “credible allegations” which, if proven, indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan military.

Sri Lanka is not committed and doesn’t follow the rules and protocols of the Commonwealth of Nations. Last week the Sri Lankan government booted out Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayke on politically motivated charges by the Parliament. The Parliamentary Select Committee which probed her and found her guilty of three charges out of 14 heaped abuses and subjected her to humiliation dubbing her a “Mad woman”.

A barrage of vituperative attack was peddled by government propagandists at the Chief Justice, before, during and after the impeachment motion. A statement issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says the UNHRC is deeply concerned that the impeachment and removal of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice has further eroded the rule of law in the country and could also set back efforts for accountability and reconciliation.

The removal of the Chief Justice through a flawed process, which has been deemed unconstitutional by the highest courts of the land is, in the High Commissioner’s view, gross interference in the independence of the judiciary and a calamitous setback for the rule of law in Sri Lanka.

Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayke was served notice of her dismissal and removed from her chambers and official residence on Jan 15, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling that the parliamentary procedure to remove her violated the Constitution.

The removal of a serving Chief Justice, and the appointment of a new Chief Justice, marks the end of constitutional governance in Sri Lanka. These were the final acts in a series of bizarre events orchestrated by the government in the past six weeks.

The government also ignored warnings from the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Human Rights Organisations, Lawyers Association in Sri Lanka, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) not to go ahead with the flawed impeachment process against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayke.

The Sri Lankan government should be suspended before the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM,) meeting for throwing overboard the rule of law and principles of good governance.

Countries like Canada, USA, EU and UK have tried hard for years to hold the Sri Lankan government accountable for human rights violations and war crimes committed during the war without success.

Sri Lanka has miserably failed in terms of healing the war-traumatised Tamil people, forging ethnic reconciliation and meaningful steps to implement the LLRC recommendations and guaranteeing human and democratic rights and the dignity of human life.

Instead of reconciliation the divide between the Sinhalese and the Tamils increases as days passes into weeks, months and years. CHOGM should press the Sri Lankan government to allow independent investigation into the thousands of disappeared and thousands of brutally tortured and killed during and after the civil war.

I personally salute Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for castigating Sri Lanka for failure to promote human rights and rule of law. I further welcome Prime Minister’s pronouncement that he will boycott the CHOGM if the Sri Lankan government fails to show progress on improving human rights and bringing about genuine reconciliation between different ethnic groups.

I am appealing to the CHOGM to take decisive action against Sri Lanka which is behaving like a rogue state in the interest of upholding the rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, human rights and time honoured democratic principles. CHOGM has a historical duty to deal with human rights violators and autocratic rulers to make the world a better place to live.