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Govt. strategy for UNHRC: Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke advocates middle path 

14 Jan 2021

By Pamodi Waravita   Flexibility, open-mindedness, and consultation across the board at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is the recommended strategy for Sri Lanka, which should ultimately aim to seek a middle path, stated former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke. Sri Lanka should not swing from one extreme to the other, he told The Morning during an interview conducted with him following his recent appointment as Senior Advisor on International Relations to Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa. The upcoming 44th UNHRC Session is due to be held in Geneva in March, and Dr. Jayatilleke expressed concerns regarding the approach adopted by the current administration. “The co-sponsorship in 2015 of the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 on 'Promoting reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka' adopted by the UNHRC in October 2015, at the Council's 30th Session, was an example of abject capitulation from the then-Government. From that position, we have now swung to the opposite end of absolute rejectionism, by withdrawing the co-sponsorship of the said Resolution. We have to find a middle ground,” Dr. Jayatilleke opined. However, Dr. Jayatilleke claimed that while some administrations are capable of demarcating the middle ground, unfortunately – be it in domestic affairs or in foreign affairs – the administration led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has abandoned the middle path in favour of extremes. “This is an unprecedented case of a government that is suspicious of the UNHRC, and a government that is taking the most extreme stance that any has taken when it comes to ethno-nationalism and militarism.” Dr. Jayatilleke further said that the UNHRC Session this March would be the first real test of the current Government’s ideology and how it plays out in the international arena. He recommended that Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the Foreign Ministry itself should formulate the strategy for the upcoming UNHRC Session in March, since they have much more experience regarding the matter, as opposed to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the former military officials he has surrounded himself with, who lack the necessary expertise on this issue. The commitments to reconciliation, accountability, and human rights made by the Resolution 30/1, which the United National Front-led Government co-sponsored at the UNHRC in 2015 were renewed in 2017 and 2019 in two further UNHRC Resolutions. With the change of the regime in 2019, the new Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna-led Government voiced its intentions to withdraw from the co-sponsorship, which it then proceeded to do in February 2020.

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