Sri Lanka Steps Up Attack on U.N. Rights Chief
Sri Lanka ratcheted up criticism of the U.N. human rights body on Thursday, accusing it of repeated "vicious and baseless" allegations, as its chief visited the island to probe alleged war crimes.
Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris told Navi Pillay that Sri Lanka "resents vicious and baseless positions which are incessantly repeated" against the island, which is emerging from decades of ethnic war.
"There is a perception in the country about the lack of objectivity and fairness in the treatment meted out to Sri Lanka," the external affairs ministry quoted Peiris as telling Pillay during talks in Colombo.
"The minister added that Sri Lanka accepts constructive and justified criticism but resents vicious and baseless positions which are incessantly repeated."
Pillay began a week-long visit to Sri Lanka on Sunday after Colombo appeared to drop its public hostility towards her and the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which has adopted two U.S.-led resolutions against the island in as many years.
The U.N. rights chief had publicly called for a war crimes investigation into what the U.N. calls "credible allegations" that up to 40,000 civilians were killed during the final stages of the island's separatist war that ended in May 2009.
Thousands of people had also disappeared, according to U.N. and international rights groups.
"The repeated use of baseless and arbitrary figures in respect of disappearances eventually acquire authenticity in the face of the massive propaganda that is being carried out against the government of Sri Lanka," Peiris said.
His remarks came ahead of a meeting Pillay is due to hold with President Mahinda Rajapakse on Friday.
Rajapakse, who returned from a visit to Belarus Wednesday, had also criticised the UNHRC of treating his Indian Ocean nation unfairly.
Earlier Thursday, Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa accused Pillay of holding "secret meetings" with activists during her ongoing fact-finding mission.
"She broke protocol, gave the slip to her security detail and went for secret meetings in Trincomalee (in the island's northeast) to conspire against the country," Weerawansa told reporters in Colombo.
"She is already planning a very adverse report."
Pillay's spokesman Rupert Colville made it clear that she had not done anything wrong.
"She is doing what she always does on her missions -- namely talk to a wide range of people, and collect a variety of views on human rights issues in the country in question," Colville told Agence France Presse.
Sri Lanka's Information minister Keheliya Rambukwella had distanced the government from his cabinet colleague Weerawansa's remarks, saying Pillay was free to travel anywhere and speak with anyone.
"Although there is laid out protocol for visiting dignitaries, in this case we have made it clear that she as the head of the human rights body is free to go to any place and meet any body she wishes to," Rambukwella told reporters in Colombo.
Pillay arrived in Sri Lanka last weekend for her first official visit after the government dropped its public hostility to her and promised access to the former war zones during the week-long mission.
The rights chief, who has previously been accused by Colombo of overstepping her mandate, has told reporters she was only holding Colombo to human rights standards agreed by all nations.
She traveled to former war zones in the north and the east and met relatives of people who disappeared during and after the government's crushing of Tamil separatists.
Sri Lanka has resisted foreign pressure for an international investigation into war crimes.
Source: Agence France Presse
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