Lanka braces for tough resolution over its rights record

Sri Lanka will face a third successive resolution tomorrow at the UN rights body which is expected to call for an international criminal probe into alleged war crimes committed during the country's decades long civil war against the LTTE.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay recommended that the 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva authorise an investigation, saying Sri Lanka has made "little progress" toward ensuring accountability for alleged atrocities.
The US-moved resolution is expected to compel Sri Lanka to cooperate with the UNHRC to set up an international probe into Sri Lanka's alleged violations of human rights law.

"This week is the most significant in Sri Lanka's contemporary history," Dayan Jayatilleke a former diplomat noted.
He said that Sri Lanka's failure to honour written undertakings made after the end of the military conflict with the LTTE in 2009 had led to distrust in the international community.
"I certainly wouldn't blame the UNHRC for hesitation to believe it (Sri Lanka government)," he wrote in a commentary.

Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa said, "The US and the West spends millions of dollars to ensure this resolution is passed. When they pass it for war crimes they will appoint an international investigation. Then they will impose sanctions and press for a regime change."

The US, however, has declined suggestions that there might be sanctions imposed as a result.
Sri Lanka waits with bated breath to find out which way India would vote. The giant neighbour had sided with the US in both previous years' resolutions.
"As in the past two years, the West expects India to do vote with it," N Sathya Moorthy, a commentator wrote.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently said he fully understood the Indian stance on the UNHRC resolution.
He dismissed the resolution as a Western plot aided and abetted by the opposition political forces and the NGOs to topple his government.