Sri Lankan Representative to UNHRC says things contrary to those on the ground situation on rights:

1. UNHRC: ”if the ‘Council is to remain credible, it must give equal attention to

a. ”economic, social and cultural rights as to civil and political rights”

Sri Lanka: ”But that truth cannot excuse human rights violations that currently afflict the nation as a whole; or for that matter obscure the looming threat of the cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority” – Biased and Prejudiced Collection on Sri Lanka, *Gananath Obesekere, Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai, 28 January 2012

b. ”the collective dimension as to the individual dimension”

Sri Lanka: Karuna, Pillaiyan, Devananda get special treatment from the government. The people in the North are under conditions that the LLRC has asked the government to remove, eg. militarisation, military administration, ….

c. ”the international as to the national”

UN: has UDHR and Conventions. when individual members violate the principles, UNHRC has to talk about individual countries.

2. UNHRC: ”25 years after the adoption of the Declaration on the Right to Development and the consensus achieved, obstacles were still being placed in the way of its implementation”

Sri Lanka: there has been economic oppression of ethnic minorities from the time of independence driving individual Tamils to various parts of the South in the last 5/6 decades – submissions to LLRC by retired Representatives to the UN

3. UNHRC: ”President Mahinda Rajapaksa has continuously emphasized that economic growth must be accompanied by equity”

Sri Lanka: ”The nineteen person-Presidential Task Force implementing the government’s “Northern Spring” program has not a single Tamil member and does no consultation with the local communities involved or with their elected representatives, (mostly TNA). Here is what the LLRC says in that regard “The Government should ensure that development activities should be carried out in consultation and with the participation of the local people. Such a transparent approach in administration would make the people feel an ownership to the development activities, as well as give them a sense of participation in nation building (LLRC Final Report 8.207) – LLRC report, an inconvenient truth? , 5 January 2012, http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/15903-llrc-report-an-inconvenient-truth.html

4. UNHRC: ”Sri Lanka recorded an unprecedented GDP growth rate of more than 8%”

Sri Lanka: ”World Bank reclassified Sri Lanka in late 2010 as a middle-income country. Food security is becoming a growing concern in Sri Lanka´s war ravaged north where a majority of the inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day” – WFP. The occupation army (owning restaurants, hotels, tourist centres, taylor shops, barber shops, cycle repair shops, sand delivery…) and Sinhalese brought from the South for manual and administrative work in the North take away the livelihood of the local people – numerous submissions by retired diplomats and civil servants to LLRC.

5. UNHRC: ”external pressures, threats and conditionalities that continue to, threaten its reconciliation process and the fragile peace”

Sri Lanka: Which foreign country is asking Sri Lankan government to oppress its own people? In the last six years alone reports by seven commissions and seven committees appointed by the President sre with the President and not made public.

6. UNHRC: ”There can be no development without effective international cooperation and solidarity”

Sri Lanka: UN, ICRC, and many other willing organisations have been severely restricted from helping the war-ravaged – too many to quote here but just one example: CHAP Action Plan 2009/2010 was not endorsed by the government and we all know what sort of situation has been prevailing in the Northeast.

7. UNHRC: ”In keeping with this requirement, my delegation calls upon the Working Group, in defining criteria and operational sub-criteria, to ensure that the multidimensional aspect of the right to development is respected”

Sri Lanka: That’s exactly what LLRC recommends Sri Lanka to do.

When the government stops lying and start implementing the recommendations by the Sri Lankans we wouldn’t have to send 54-member delegation to UNHRC.

TRUTH can be told by one person. LIES have to be told by many persons.

This kind of lying has been done by successive governments at the UN for decades. Please let us change our behaviour.