A commendable step

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decision to extend the time granted to the Commission investigating serious Human Rights violations, by another year should be commended.

It is a clear demonstration of the President’s willingness to probe all allegations. It is also a reflection of the sincerity of the President to get to the bottom of all the charges levelled by human rights organisations and certain Western powers.

The Commission was set up in November 2006 with a mandate to inquire into 16 stipulated incidents including the killing of 17 aid workers in Muttur, the assassinations of MPs Joseph Pararajasingham and Nadaraja Raviraj and also the disappearance of a Catholic priest in North last year.

This extension to the life span of the Commission to complete all investigations it is hoped will alley the concerns of human rights watchdogs who have been carrying out an unrelenting campaign to discredit the Government over alleged rights violations.

They failed to realise that President Rajapaksa is the first Lankan Head of State to order a Commission to inquiry into human rights violations and put in place the necessary machinery to accomplish the task. Moreover, he invited an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons to oversee its work.

The President is no doubt keen to show the world that nothing will be swept under the carpet and that justice would be meted out to the perpetrators.

This at a time when those countries who are eager to pry into our human rights situation are turning a blind eye to the abuse of human rights in their own backyard. Take the case of war ravaged Iraq where human rights abuses are rampant.

It should also be noted that the spate of abductions that was witnessed recently has now ceased to a great degree following the specific instructions of the President to probe these incidents.

Several persons have been arrested in this connection. Already charges of disappearances have come a cropper with many of those supposed to have been abducted exposed as having left the country while some others had reportedly returned back to their families after amorous flings.

It is hoped that those countries who preach to us from the rooftops about human rights turn the searchlight inwards and stop dictating to a sovereign State on how to conduct its affairs. True, today human rights has assumed importance in a global context and is used as a bludgeon for aid against poor Third World countries who are expected to fall in line.

Equally it is true that the there is a tendency by human rights groups to be sympathetic to terrorist organisations fighting legitimate states and show such Governments in a poorer light to the international community by exaggerating incidents.

The ultimate goal is to induct a UN presence in those countries leading to their gradual dismemberment. The Government should be alive to the sinister motives of these groups and make every endeavour to defeat their designs.

By the same token these groups should not be allowed to hamper in anyway the smooth conduct of the drive to defeat terrorism. As recent actions of some of these Human Rights organisations suggest they are all out to attract sympathy towards the LTTE.

President Rajapaksa has all the credentials as a defender of human rights, being in the forefront of many an agitation on behalf of the victims of human rights violations not to mention his pioneering role in the formation of the Mothers’ Front as an opposition MP and even his bitterest critic would agree that he is the last person to be lectured on human rights.

There is no doubt a concerted effort being made by his opponents backed by some NGOs to bring to the fore human rights issues in the hope of cutting aid to the country, exacerbating its economic woes.

True, there could be certain abuses during times of conflict of the nature that Sri Lanka is experiencing and the Opposition too cannot claim to have a clean slate in this connection.

One cannot but help recall the fate of Wijedasa Liyanaarchchi and Richard De Zoyza. Today the Human rights lobby is being increasingly selective in singling out only the Government for human rights violations ignoring or soft peddling LTTE atrocities.

It is appropriate that the Commission is also mandated to inquire into the Kebethigollewa massacre where 68 villagers perished. What have human rights groups got to say on this incident ? Or are they only interested in the human rights of one group ?

True, a legitimate Government cannot be equated with a terrorist outfit and is bound by international conventions.

But those advocators of human rights ought to be more circumspect before they point the accusing finger solely at the Government which is doing all it can on the human rights front.