Editorial-September 19, 2013
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa set the cat among the pigeons the other day by telling a Sunday newspaper that UNHRC chief Navi Pillay had, at a recent meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, wanted the statue of Sri Lanka’s first Prime Minster D. S. Senanayake and the Buddhist flag removed from the Independence Square. An irate UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe lost no time in writing to Pillay, and rightly so, asking whether she had actually said what had been attributed to her. The UNP bigwigs accused the government of trying to concoct an excuse for removing the DS statue. (What will happen to the statue of SLFP founder leader and Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike at the Galle Face Green, when a sprawling star class hotel comes up in the area, remains to be seen.)
The statue dispute, as it were, took a dramatic turn on Tuesday, when UNP Spokesman Tissa Attanayake told the media that Pillay’s spokesman had verbally denied the government’s claim. He went on to flay the government for fabricating a story with an ulterior motive.
This is a very serious diplomatic issue which needs to be treated as such. The UNHRC has, according to Attanayake, denied as baseless a high ranking Sri Lankan government official’s statement based on what allegedly transpired at a meeting between the UN human rights chief and Sri Lanka’s President with several diplomats and state officials in attendance.
There has also been a breach of protocol, we reckon. Why has the UNHRC chief got her spokesman to reply verbally to a letter addressed to her by Sri Lanka’s Opposition Leader, seeking a clarification from her in writing? The reply should have been conveyed to Wickremesinghe direct by her. The UNP ought to insist that Pillay clarify her position in a letter, which should be released to the media.
It will be interesting to know what the government has got to say to this. Minutes of every meeting between the President and any foreign dignitary are always taken by both sides and the government should be able to produce verbatim what Pillay is alleged to have said about the DS statue and the Buddhist flag. Their meeting was also attended by high ranking government and UN officials and they should be able to tell us what really happened. The government’s silence on this issue will be tantamount to its admission that the statue and flag story is a total fabrication.
The public have a right to know who is lying. Is it the Defence Secretary or the UNHRC chief? The UNP could help ascertain who the liar is by demanding that Pillay sends her reply in writing and challenging the government to prove her wrong.
If it could be established beyond any doubt that the Defence Secretary has made a false claim, the government must apologise to Pillay, and the UNP will be able to justify its position that the government is trying to relocate the DS statue on some flimsy pretext.
Similarly, if the government could prove that Pillay has lied in a bid to save face, then her credibility will suffer irreparably and its delegation to the UNHRC may be able to mine a rich seam thereof in Geneva when she presents her report on Sri Lanka, based on information which she claims to have elicited from reliable sources.
