Navi Pillay signals balanced preliminary assessment as Rajapaksa continues LLRC-farce
[TamilNet, Friday, 23 August 2013, 16:41 GMT]The AFP, Press Trust of India (PTI) and The New Indian Express on Friday gave significance to a story originating from Colombo that SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday ‘bifurcated’ the SL Defense Ministry, which has been in-charge of the police as well as the three armed forces, by bringing the Police under a new ministry. In reality, the announcement is just a farce as both Defence Ministry and the newly created ‘Law and Order’ ministry remain under the same powerful minister who is none other than the SL President himself. Former Chief of Staff of the genocidal SL military, Major General (retd) Nanda Mallawarachchi is to be the Secretary of the new ‘police’ ministry. Both the PTI and the New Indian Express reports have also noted that the LLRC had recommended the SL government to exclude the police from the Defence Ministry's control.
In the meantime, Ms Navi Pillay in an e-mail interview to Thomson Reuters Foundation on Friday, said that she has an “open mind” and will not be “pre-judging anything” ahead of her visit to the island.
"I want to see for myself the reconstruction and rehabilitation effort, but also what progress is being made towards accountability and reconciliation," U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Pillay was telling the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"I am not pre-judging anything. There are clearly plenty of issues to discuss, including some worrying ones, and some more positive developments. I am going with an open mind and I plan to give a balanced preliminary assessment of my own impressions at the end of my visit," she added.
Informed diplomatic sources in Colombo said key foreign missions of the West were busy in behind-the-scene negotiations with the representatives of the Sri Lankan State and that Ms Navi Pillay's interview was an expected gesture extended to the Sri Lankan State in order to create a ‘conducive environment’ for her visit to the island.
Ms Navi Pillay is scheduled to provide a ‘spoken update’ to Human Rights Council Session in September and a full fledged ‘formal report’ in March 2014, while the US-tabled, India-fine tuned, UNHRC resolution upholding the LLRC has been rejected outright by Tamils and has been severely criticized by the global human rights groups.
Sri Lanka removes police from defence control
A Sri Lankan police officer keeps watch at parliament in Colombo on May 31, 2013. Sri Lanka's president has bowed to international pressure and relinquished the defence ministry's authority over the police department, an official said Friday. (AFP/File)
President Mahinda Rajapakse has created a new ministry for law and order, and placed it in charge of the 80,000-strong police which had been overseen by the defence ministry for the past nine years.
"The president has issued a gazette notification creating the ministry of Law and Order which will be responsible for the police department," the President's spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said.
There was no government explanation for setting up the new ministry, but an official source who declined to be named said the move was in line with the recommendation of a panel to improve the island's rights record.
The panel, which probed the final stages of the island's decades-long Tamil separatist war, recommended in November 2011 that the police department be de-linked from the defence ministry. This was strongly backed by rights groups and the international community.
The latest government move comes ahead of a visit to the island by the United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay following two Human Rights Council resolutions censuring the island over its rights record.
Sri Lankan troops declared an end to 37 years of ethnic war after wiping out the leadership of the Tamil Tiger rebels in May 2009.
Sri Lanka has resisted international pressure for an independent investigation into war crimes despite what the UN calls "credible allegations" of up to 40,000 civilians killed in the final battles in 2009.
Instead it has conducted a number of its own probes into disappearances and extrajudicial killings during the conflict, which have resulted in few prosecutions or convictions.
Sri Lanka has maintained its forces did not kill civilians while battling Tigers who were known for suicide bombings.
