Lanka says ready for resolution as UNHRC session begins

Colombo: Sri Lanka on Monday said it is well prepared and confident of success at the UNHRC session where the country faces a resolution moved by the US on its human rights record this month.

Commenting on the UN Human Rights Council session which kicks off today in Geneva, President Mahinda Rajapaksa`s spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said the government was well prepared and was confident of success while facing the expected resolution. The UN is expected to adopt a third resolution in as many years censuring Sri Lanka on its lack of progress on human rights accountability and reconciliation with the Tamil minority after the brutal civil war ended five years ago. India had supported the two previous UNHRC resolutions moved by the US against Sri Lanka. Rajapaksa last week said that political compulsions in India with regard to Tamil Nadu needed to be understood by Sri Lanka as its giant neighbour is in an election year. The Sri Lanka president left for Myanmar today to attend the BIMSTEC summit where he will also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This would be Rajapaksa`s first meeting with Singh after the Indian prime minister had skipped the Commonwealth summit in Colombo last November. Of the seven-member Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), India is the only nation to hold a seat at the UNHRC. Officials said at today`s session at the UNHRC, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and the foreign ministers of Britain and Canada are to make submissions which will contain references to Sri Lanka. Pillay in her recent report had reiterated the call for an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes committed during the final battle between Sri Lankan government troops and the LTTE in 2009. Sri Lanka dismissed the call as unjustified and intrusive and stressed the adequacy of local mechanisms including its own reconciliation commission`s recommendations to address the issues.