Colombo changing tack on LLRC?
A mere four days after a resolution at the United
Nations Human Rights Council wanted Sri Lanka to implement the
recommendations of a commission that went into issues of reconciliation,
a senior Minister has said the commission had gone beyond its mandate.
Minister
Nimal Siripala de Silva, who had presented the report of the Lessons
Learnt and Reconciliation Commission to Parliament and assured on the
floor of the House its implementation, said on Monday the LLRC went
beyond its mandate. “Careful consideration would be given before
implementing the recommendations proposed by the LLRC,” he said at a
press conference organised by the External Affairs Ministry and attended
by the team comprising at least six Ministers which went to Geneva.
Sri
Lanka's stand so far has been that it had set up three committees to
implement the recommendations of the LLRC report. Its Army has
instituted a Court of Inquiry to probe the alleged cases of human rights
violations. It argued before the UNHRC that sufficient time should be
given to implement the recommendations. It said the report was submitted
to the government only in November 2011 and it was presented to
Parliament in December the same year. Hardly three months had passed and
the government was serious about implementing the report, Sri Lanka
told the world.
The Minister's assertion indicates a
change of stance on the implementation of the report. Sri Lanka is also
yet to implement the interim recommendations of the commission, which
was submitted more than a year before the final report was handed over
to the President.
Instead, Mr. Srirpala wanted the
Tamil National Alliance to participate in the proposed Parliamentary
Select Committee to evolve a national consensus on a political solution
of the ethnic problem.
The TNA is against this as it
will be a minority in the PSC and the outcome of such a body would not
be favourable for the Tamils of the Northern Province.
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