Three high ranking people in the UN helped the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to appoint an advisory panel of experts on Jun 22 2010 to advise him on accountability issues relating to alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka that ended in May last year. They were Dr (Mrs) Navaneethan Pillai, Mr Philip Alston and Mr Lynn Pascoe.

The advisory Panel members are:- Indonesia’s Mr Marzuki Darusman will serve as the chair of the expert panel, and the other two members are Ms Yasmin Sooka of South Africa and Mr Steven Ratner of the United States. The three-member panel will advise Mr. Ban on implementing the commitment on human rights accountability made in the Joint Statement issued by him and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) after the UN chief visited the island in May 09. The panel is expected to wrap up its responsibilities within four months of starting work.

The UN panel had been the end product of the untiring work of many stalwarts, and of special mention were the UN trio, Mr Philip Alston, Mr Lynn Pascoe and the UN Under Secretary for Human Rights (HR) Dr (Ms) Navaneethan Pillai. From the media sector, among many, it was Mr Matthew Russell Lee of the Inner City Press who kept the issue burning alive in the UN through exploratory questions from the UN staff. It was indeed a pleasure to watch this investigative journalist probing the UN staff to elicit the truth behind the Sri-Lankan genocide of nearly 40000 Tamils in the war. So what uniqueness that these great people had in them in common and individually to achieve this feat?

We are aware that great leaders in the past had influenced the history of the world in significant ways. These great leaders have demonstrated unique qualities that have enabled them to accomplish their goals and fame. Some of these great men should inspire us to emulate their examples. Jesus and Moses had Self Sacrificial Love, Martin Luther King, Jr. and  Mahatma Ghandi had (far sighted) Vision, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln had great Courage, Clara Barton and Mother Teresa showed Compassion, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie possessed Innovativeness and Ellen White and  John Wesley were blessed with Humility.

In turn these three UN employees/volunteers and Matthew Russell Lee had in them a passion for loving their fellow men. That is all. They kept their head cool and followed their ideals persistently-without wavering. They ran the sixty second worth of extra miles to get the UN panel appointed. Perhaps, they were encouraged by the English poet Rudyard Kipling whose famous poem ‘IF’ runs as follows:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise ----

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

As experienced employees of the UN they had a haunch that some serious HR violations and War Crimes were committed by both party in the war. Therefore, UN as a body formed to protect the world from the recurrence of another holocaust had to act to bring the culprits responsible for the genocide of nearly 40000 Tamils to International Courts of Criminal Justice (ICCJ) as a deterrent to other nations and leaders thinking on adopting the crooked and deceptive methods employed by the Government of Sri-Lanka (GSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This is of course natural justice devoid of any power politics involvement.

However, Tamils all over the world and now many nations in the UN knew, that countries interested in having a stake in geopolitical advantage in Sri-Lanka helped GSL to commit serious war crimes such as the use of prohibited weapons, not taking in prisoners of war, killing those who surrendered hoisting flags and many others that the advisory panel will soon find out. There is credible documentary evidence for that. The Dublin Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) had passed its verdict before hand on this War Crime issue. Therefore this Trio had to act fast to do what they did. They ran the extra mile.

These three personalities had academic and other credentials as well to accomplish this task. Dr (Ms) Navanethan Pillai was appointed as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 28 July 2008. Her credentials are: a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from Natal University South Africa.  She also holds a Master of Laws and a doctorate in juridical science from Harvard University.  Ms N Pillay was an attorney and conveyancer of the High Court of South Africa from 1967 to 1995, and was appointed acting judge of the High Court in 1995.  In 1967, she became the first woman to start a law practice in South Africa's Natal Province, providing legal defence for opponents of apartheid.  Since 2003, she served as judge on the International Criminal Court.  In 1999, she was elected Judge President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which she joined in 1995, having been elected as judge by the General Assembly; her four-year term with the Rwanda Tribunal was renewed in 1998.

During the special session of the UN Human Rights Council, convened by 17 members of the council on 26 and 27 of May 2009, a week after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by government forces, Ms Pillay called for an independent international investigation into violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the recent fighting, including those specifically responsible. At that time UN estimated that more than 7,000 civilians had been killed in the fighting in Sri Lanka since late January 2009. Reminding the moving scene of the refugees she said, "The images of terrified and emaciated women, men, and children fleeing the battle zone ought to be etched in our collective memory," Pillay emphasized, "They must spur us into action."

 The seventeen conveners of the Special Session of the HRC were: Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mauritius, Mexico, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uruguay, and the United Kingdom.

However, contrary to Ms Pillai’s plea the Human Rights Council passed a resolution with 29 votes in favour and 12 against, with 6 abstentions, largely commending the Sri Lankan government for its current policies and congratulated it on the victory over the ‘terrorist’ LTTE and for its efforts to address the needs of civilians displaced by the fighting.  It notably failed to address serious allegations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law by government forces, focusing only on the abuses committed by the LTTE.

It is important to note that Argentina, Chile, the Czech Republic, Mauritius, Mexico, and Switzerland gainsaid that motion and wanted a stronger resolution. They must be applauded for being realistic in such a situation where HR was being compromised to power politics and fallacious diplomacy.

Ms Pillai took this with humility and understanding but she never gave up her fight for justice. After a year from the end of the war and the passing of the ‘patting on the back’ UN motion, she repeated the call for an International Inquiry while addressing the HRC through video link this year.

Ms Navi Pillay, acknowledged that the Sri Lanka government had created a post-war reconciliation commission to look into alleged human rights violations, and provide justice to victims. With skepticism she went on "However, based on previous experience and new information, I remain convinced that such objectives would be better served by establishing an independent international accountability mechanism that would enjoy public confidence, both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere".

These two speeches of her to the HRC reveal the determination of Ms Navi Pillai in achieving her well defined goals though she knew it may take time.

Professor Alston is Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law. He was appointed Special Rapporteur in 2004 and reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. He has had extensive experience in the human rights field. Like all Special Rapporteurs, Mr. Alston reports to the 47-member Council in an independent and unpaid capacity. Citing reports of war crimes in the last war in May 2009, he was insistent, I quote, “I believe that there is a compelling need for an objective and impartial international investigation to ascertain the facts and make recommendations,”.

Mr. Alston also referred to the allegations that as many as 30,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka last year in the closing months of the conflict between Government forces and Tamil rebels and that grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law were committed.

“In this case also there is a need for an independent international inquiry,” he said. “While the Council rejected this proposal a year ago, there is now a great deal of new evidence which would warrant effective action.” UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston publicly urged Ban to appoint an international panel to investigate presumptive war crimes in Sri Lanka.

The sore point to note is that Sri Lankan government had since 2006 refused to let Professor Philip Alston into the country. This shows how the GSL probably clandestinely carried out War crimes and trying to keep that away from the public eye by preventing UN official visiting the island on fact finding missions.

Mr. Lynn Pascoe, the Under Secretary-General for political affairs in the United Nations . was appointed to this post on 1 March 2007. Born in the State of Missouri in 1943, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Kansas and his Master of Arts from Columbia University. In an almost forty-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Mr. Pascoe also held positions on the Soviet and China desks.

Mr. Lynn Pascoe, visited Sri Lanka on 22 September 2009 and reported back to Ban that progress was being made. He issued a strong statement calling on the government to allow internally displaced persons who have completed the screening process to leave the camps and to allow those who choose to remain to go out during the day and to meet freely with family and friends elsewhere. First, he called for an improvement of the screening procedures Second, he recommended to pursue in parallel different options: returning displaced persons to their homes, releasing IDPs – in particular persons with special needs and their families - to host families, and establishing open relief centres in transit areas for those with nowhere else to go. The Representative recalled the importance of ensuring IDPs’ and humanitarian workers’ access to information. Information is essential to enable the displaced to learn about the fate of family members who are still separated from their relatives or were taken away for rehabilitation purposes, to assess their own situation in the camps, and to make an informed decision about their future. Close and constructive cooperation and information sharing between the Government and humanitarian and development actors are the most promising ways to address these challenges in the coming weeks.

Again he expressed concern over the slow implementation of commitments that Colombo made to Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, when he visited in May 2009. He was very much concerned that the GSL deliver the promised humanitarian relief.

Matthew Russell Lee of the Inner City Press that reports on UN activities is a journalist and a very good humanitarian worker who carried out his professional duty with diligence. If not for him the Tamil community would not have had a good ambassador to speak for them in those UN press briefings.

Though an advisory panel has been appointed now, Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse (MR) last Thursday reiterated that he would not tolerate any outside review of the military offensive of 2009. His External Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris told reporters on Thursday June 2010, that Sri Lanka will ban visits by the three-member United Nations panel investigating alleged human rights abuses in the final months of the island's civil war. He went on “We will not issue them with visas. We will not allow them into this country".

Slinging mud at the UN or the members of the panel is not the way to face a genuine problem that had arisen out of the war. The war was described as a ‘War Without Witnesses” by the world media and as the ‘Blood Bath on the Beaches’ by Sir John Holmes, UN undersecretary for Humanitarian relief. They had reasons to call such names for the dirty war. GSL should remember that evidence against them is mounting and chauvinistic regimes that promise to support it are loosing their credibility in the world arena.

It had been reported in Srilankanewsfirst.com that in an attempt to hide evidence of war crimes, the GSL, had engaged a Chinese firm to exhume the bodies hastily buried in the war zone by Sri-Lankan security forces during the final stages of the war in May 2009 and destroy them beyond recognition under a fisheries business project. Diplomatic sources say that the government has permitted a Chinese firm to commence this project at the Nandikadal lagoon. The project, which is to commence under the Fisheries Ministry, is to be carried out under close supervision of the Defence Ministry. The secretary to this ministry is Gothabaya Rajapakse, one of the brothers of MR. Fisheries Minister Rajitha Senaratne has already told the media that a Chinese firm has earlier requested for permission to commence a fisheries project in the Nandikadal lagoon.

All counter moves and opinion are against Sri-Lanka. The UN SG Mr Ban Ki Mun himself when speaking to CNN said, referring to the IDP camp he visited said: "I have travelled around the world and visited similar places, but this is by far the most appalling scenes I have seen," He further said "Wherever there are serious violations of human rights as well as international humanitarian law, proper investigation should be instituted," and promised international action regarding the heavy shelling of civilian populations during the recent fighting.

Again International NGOs, for example, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) had already collected materials to show that War crimes were committed during the last war. It was in their report in May 2010. ICG said that the Sri Lankan military encouraged hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians to move into government-declared "no-fire zones" in the last months of the war (April-May 2009) and then subjected them to "repeated and increasingly intense artillery and mortar barrages." killing thousands of Tamil civilians unlawfully. "This continued through May despite the government and security forces knowing the size and location of the civilian population and scale of civilian casualties," the ICG reported. The group said it had collected eyewitness statements as well as hundreds of photographs, videos, satellite images, electronic communications and documents from multiple sources to support the charges.

Sri-Lanka cannot swim against the tide set forth by this UN trio through their untiring efforts. Their labour will bear fruit in the conviction of war criminals and in restoring the rights of the minorities, stipulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and Adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992.

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