PR, UN Geneva in reply to NGO statement on Sri Lanka HR situation

While Sri Lanka stands by the 2005 UN World Leader’s Summit definition of the Responsibility to Protect, any attempt to apply fake versions to Sri Lanka will meet with a “full spectrum of resistance by the Sri Lankan people and State who’ll defend their sovereignty by any means necessary”, said H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva.

He was speaking at the Eighth Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council which is currently being held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Yesterday (04^th June 2008), during the General Debate on Item 3 on Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, Sri Lanka exercised its right of reply to comment on the remarks made by the European Union (EU) on Sri Lanka and Prof. Karen Parker on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Given below is the full-text of Dr. Jayatilleka’s response.

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H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka – Ambassador and Permanent Representative of

Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Geneva

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“Thank you Mr. President,

We note a reference to Sri Lanka in the EU statement. The EU has expressed its utmost concern and disappointment concerning Sri Lanka. We wish, Mr. President, that this concern of the EU had been extended to the testimony of Professor Philip Alston on parts of the globe in which European troops are involved in combat. Professor Alston mentioned at least two such places in which horrors were taking place; one, in the South Asian region. So, we commend the Biblical saying “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thine brother’s eye but considerest not the beam that is thine own?” Matthew 7:3, I believe.

Now, a representative of an NGO called the International Education Development, IED, which curiously also stands for Improvised Explosive Device [laughter], brought in the concept of Responsibility to Protect in relation to Sri Lanka. Mr. President, the Sri Lankan State is in the process of exercising its responsibility to protect its citizens’ Right to Life from the threat of terrorism. Even today, a bomb has injured at least 18 people who were commuters on a train. The responsibility to protect is invoked in the loosest of senses by many these days.

Mr. President, Sri Lanka remains committed to the World Leaders’ Summit of 2005, in which the Responsibility to Protect is to be exercised and decided upon by the UN Security Council and none other. If any misguided parties attempt to invoke the Responsibility to Protect in relation to Sri Lanka outside of that Security Council, well, they must be prepared for a full spectrum of resistance by the Sri Lankan people and State who’ll defend their sovereignty by any means necessary.

Thank you Mr. President.”