Charles Haviland Colombo

	Mr. Palihakkara (left) hearing evidence at LLRC

H.M.G.S. Palihakkara was Sri Lankan ambassdador to the UN and is part of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which is due to report back to the government in May on its hearings on the war’s causes and final course.

Mr Palihakkara – who acts as de facto deputy chairman of the LLRC – said that all Sri Lankakn governments, and the political parties, had shown a failure of leadership and that therefore “external prescriptions become inevitable” with the country facing intense international attention.

Critical of the tone of current external relations

Giving a lecture on foreign policy challenges facing the post-war country, he was critical of the tone of Colombo’s current external relations conduct.

show to those who voice their concern on accountability issues, that the Government is serious about addressing them Palihakkara

The retired diplomat said the Tamil Tigers’ (LTTE’s) use of hundreds of thousands of civilians as “human shields” had exposed those people to humanitarian danger, causing key international players to favour intervention and a negotiated end to the conflict.

Diplomatic difficulties

The Sri Lankan government had managed to prevent the UN Security Council from blocking its military operation and had achieved victory – yet it was now facing further diplomatic difficulties.

To overcome this, it was important to work with all countries, including Sri Lanka’s critics, and “show to those who voice their concern on accountability issues, that the Government is serious about addressing them”.

“Most importantly, the Government needs to show the victims of the conflict, be they the victims of LTTE terrorism or of the military operations, that the government is responsive to conflict-related grievances as well as their root causes,” said Mr Palihakkara.

Criticism of the tone of Colombo’s foreign policy

“It is in this manner that one can meet the current challenge thrown at us by those critics of Sri Lanka, rather than hurling abuses at our critics.”

certain crimes go unpunished, certain offenders enjoy impunity and certain investigations waver Palihakkara

In a veiled criticism of the tone of Colombo’s foreign policy, the retired diplomat said that diplomacy was not a “zero sum game of cultivating one or one set of friends at the expense of another”. Instead, it was about seeking common ground.

This would help Sri Lanka to be a society “where peaceful dissent is seen as an enriching experience and an exciting democratic challenge, and not an act of treachery or treason”.

Members of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government frequently label dissenting voices as “traitors”.

Sloganeering

Mr Palihakkara also said that Sri Lanka’s assertion of its sovereignty should be more than just “sloganeering”.

Sovereignty must entail a government exercising its authority to uphold the rule of law.

If that does not happen, he said, “certain crimes go unpunished, certain offenders enjoy impunity and certain investigations waver”.

International human rights groups say that past Sri Lankan investigations into human rights abuses have failed to bring anyone to justice and point out that the results of several have never been made known.

Mr Palihakkara said human rights should be upheld in Sri Lanka and that the authorities should launch “humanely responsive policies” to address “the real concerns of the conflict victims’ communities, especially the minorities”.