UN vote on Lanka resolution today

| by Ashok Tuteja

( March 21, 2013, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Top officials today briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on key features of the US-sponsored resolution on human rights violations in the island nation. The resolution will be taken up at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva tomorrow.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, National Security Adviser Shivshanker Menon, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai and India’s Permanent Representative to the UN offices in Geneva Dilip Sinha met the Prime Minister and apprised him of various developments connected with the resolution.

Sinha will return to Geneva tonight with appropriate instructions from the government on the stand to be taken by India at the UN meet.

India’s PLAN

• Move amendments to the final draft to send ‘resolute message’ to the island nation
• May seek ‘independent’, ‘credible’ probe into civilian killings; skip demand for international probe
• Unlikely to mention ‘genocide’ but seek early elections in northern and eastern provinces

Earlier in the day, Finance Minister P Chidambaram told mediapersons that New Delhi would move amendments to the final draft to send a “resolute message” to the island nation on alleged violation of human rights of the Tamils. He dismissed suggestions that India had sought dilution of the US resolution.

India is expected to seek an “independent” and “credible” investigation, and not an international probe into allegations of civilian killings in Sri Lanka. It will push for the reiteration of humanitarian concerns at the meeting.

India’s amendments are unlikely to make any mention of the term “genocide” though New Delhi will push for early elections in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.

It is understood that the final draft of the US resolution has also not acceded to the demand for an independent international probe into the allegations of human rights violations. It, however, is part of the preamble.