Statement by H.E. Ambassador Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations at the Seventh Session of the Human Rights Council prior to the adoption of the Resolution titled “Situation of human rights in Myanmar” A/HRC/7/L.36.

“Thank you Mr. President, Sri Lanka wishes to associate itself with the sentiments expressed by the distinguished representatives of China, the Philippines and Pakistan on this issue of the resolution on Myanmar. Mr. President, her Excellency the Ambassador of the Philippines mentioned in passing the engagement of Myanmar with the International Labour Organization. I would like to use that mention, that reference, to draw attention to a far more balanced and fair manner of dealing with the Myanmar situation, and that was the resolution that was passed just a week or so ago in the International Labour Organization at its Governing Body Meeting. 

Unfortunately, Mr. President, that sense of balance and realism is not displayed in this resolution that is before us. In everything, Mr. President, there has to be a sense of proportion. When the situation in Myanmar was dramatic and urgent, the Council responded in a spirit of almost unanimity. The situation has improved, Mr. President.

The situation in Myanmar is not static. The system is not hermetically closed and sealed. Now that change, however modest, however molecular, is important, and it has not been registered in the draft resolution that we find before us. Mr. President, no positive constructive change is possible in any given country, without the support of its neighbours and those of the continent to which it belongs.    

I would therefore urge those who wish to take action on Myanmar to be guided far more than they have been, by the almost unanimous sentiments of Myanmar’s neighbours and those of us in Asia, the continent in which Myanmar is located. I agree with the representative of Pakistan who flagged the intrusive character of the present resolution.  

Thank you, Mr. President.”