Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

The Sri Lankan government is expected to say 'no' to a suggestion from the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Louise Arbour, to have a UN rights monitoring office in Sri Lanka, informed sources told Hindustan Times on Thursday.

Tamil leaders who met Arbour in Colombo on Wednesday, said that she was very unhappy with the rights situation in the country. She regretted that the government had not permitted her to go to the LTTE's headquarters in Kilinochchi even though one of the key objectives of her visit was to tell the rebels about the need to observe human rights in areas under their control.

Arbour said that in her view, there was a good case for setting up a UN monitoring mission in the island.

But she was not hopeful about setting it up, because she knew that the Sinhala-Buddhist political forces close to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, like the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), were dead against it.

The leaders of the JVP, who had met Arbour, had raised the issue with her and she had assured them that no such office would be set up without the Sri Lankan government's express consent.

And such consent is highly unlikely, given the political colour of the Rajapaksa government and its close relations with radical Sinhala-Buddhist organisations.

Case for UN mission

International rights organisations, especially the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been vigorously promoting the idea of setting up a UN monitoring mission in Sri Lanka in view of the continued rights violations, especially in the rebellious Tamil-speaking North and East of the island, where the armed forces, the Tamil paramilitaries, and the LTTE, are all accused of violating rights.

Tamil parties like the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Western Province Peoples' Front (WPPF) led by Mano Ganesan, have been demanding regular monitoring by a UN office. According to Tamil sources, the opposition United National Party (UNP) led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (Mahajana) led by Mangala Samaraweera, also favour the setting up of a mission here and they had conveyed this to Arbour.

Yes they are. because they are part of Sri Lankan society. If not why would you think the government is bothered to send food and other rations from South?

...Both sides could obviously benefit from finding more constructive leaders ...

Duka thami puthey.... LTTE ekata wadinkota... umbata duka thami... kaapan mada dan!

I think sinhalese will suffer more than tamils if the war is over .