A draft resolution titled ‘Promoting reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka’ was tabled on Tuesday in the ongoing 46th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to which Sri Lanka reacted strongly, and called the member states to reject any country-specific resolution. 

A report in Daily Mirror says the resolution on Sri Lanka calls for a thorough and impartial investigation and, if warranted, prosecution of all allegations of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law including for long-standing emblematic cases. 

It also asked the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner in Sri Lanka for increased and independent monitoring of the human rights situation in the country. 

All resolutions presented in the ongoing session would be considered on March 22 and 23. 

Conversely, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, in his address to the session, asked the member states to reject any country-specific resolution in this regard. He called the recent report by the UNHRC on Sri Lanka “biased, unjustified, and beyond the scope of the council itself”. 

Gunawardena claimed the report incorporated many issues pertaining to “governance and matters that are essentially domestic in any self-respecting, sovereign country.” Reminding the council of the long struggle and supreme sacrifices that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces made to annihilate the dreaded terrorist network LTTE, he said any resolution would undermine the world’s morale in fighting the global threat of terrorism. 

LTTE was a Tamil militant separatist organization that operated in the country’s northeastern parts for almost three decades. 

In his address, the Sri Lankan minister said the organization was the only terror group in the world that had assassinated two world leaders - former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. 

A report in Daily Mirror also said around 18 nations have assured the Sri Lankan government that they would speak in favor of Sri Lanka at the session.