October 18, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 5, 1428

COLOMBO: As four prominent members of a Human Rights Advisory Committee appointed by the Sri Lanka’s human rights minister resigned citing lack of faith in the government in mitigating rights violations, the country’s main opposition said it backed moves for deploying United Nations Human Rights Monitors in the island.

Opposition United National Party’s (UNP) front-liner Lakshman Kiriella responding to matters raised by visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour told a news conference that the government should not fear such a UN monitors deployment in the country if it had nothing to conceal about alleged rights abuse.

“Ms Arbour, who arrived in Sri Lanka for a first hand assessment, has found that human rights are being violated with impunity here. People are abducted and killed in broad daylight and the government remains tight-lipped on the matter making its complicity suspect,” Kiriella said.

On Monday, Sunila Abeysekera, Dr Rohan Edirisinha, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu and Nimalka Fernando, all prominent Sri Lankan Human rights activists, resigned from the government Human Rights panel.

“We felt this regime was not serious in protecting human rights or eliminating the culture of impunity. Therefore, we formally informed the human right’s minister that we were giving up our positions with immediate effect,” Dr Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu head of Colombo based think tank, the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) said.

North-based women’s rights activist Saroja Sivachandran, who is a member of the Human Rights panel representing the war scarred Jaffna peninsula, said she opted to stay on the panel.

“I share the same opinions as the activists who resigned but I will stay on because I am the only member representing Jaffna where a lot of abductions and other harassments take place.

But I too may resign if there are no proper measures taken by the government to investigate cases of abductions and disappearances”, Sivachandran told Dawn.

Asked if she supported UN monitors being brought into the country, she said: “There was no other option.”

The government and the Marxist political party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), last week categorically told UN official Louise Arbour that Sri Lanka would never allow UN Human Rights monitors into the country.

“We have explained to the UN envoy what we are doing to protect the people in the north-east from LTTE terrorism,” Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said when contacted.

The government slammed the United Nations asking why it did not deploy its monitors in Iraq and Kashmir where thousands of disappearances took place.

“There are 600,000 disappearances in Iraq and 10,000 in Kashmir but they come to Sri Lanka to investigate 1,200 cases,” government minister Rajitha Senaratne said, addressing a press conference.

The government did not permit Louise Arbour to visit rebel-controlled territory citing security reasons as well as fear that the rebels would use the visit for propaganda. However, the envoy, who travelled to the military-controlled Jaffna peninsula, said at the conclusion of her five day visit that the country “had many elements needed for a strong national protection system”.

“While the government has pointed to several initiatives it has taken to address these issues, there has yet to be an adequate and credible public accounting for the majority of these incidents,” the UN envoy told the media, stating that in “the absence of more vigorous investigations, prosecutions and convictions”, it was hard to see how the present situation of human rights abuse will come to an end.