SL to speak on opening day of UNHRC sessions
Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha is due to make a statement on the opening day of the 26th UN Human Rights Council sessions tomorrow.
Mr. Aryasinha speaking to Daily Mirror yesterday said he was due to make a statement that would include comments on the investigation team on Sri Lanka led by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as the leader of the Sri Lanka delegation, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva where the sessions would commence tomorrow.
UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay who will be delivering the opening statement tomorrow is due to comment on Sri Lanka and the appointment of the investigation team that will conduct the OHCHR led probe on the alleged human rights and international humanitarian law violations committed by both sides during the final phase of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
A release copy of Ms. Pillay’s opening statement for tomorrow confirmed that her office has “put in place a team that would be supported by several experts and Special Procedures mandate holders’” to conduct the comprehensive investigation on Sri Lanka, mandated at the UNHRC in March.
Although the composition of the team is yet to be confirmed by the OHCHR, media reports stated that senior UN official Sandra Beidas, who has served in the UN for over 15 years, had been appointed as the Senior Coordinator for the investigation into Sri Lanka.
Beidas was appointed to the Haiti Human Rights mission for eight years, she then held the position of chief of child protection of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo and was head of the protection and reporting section of the OHCHR office in Nepal. She was recently appointed as a member of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) until she was expelled from South Sudan. Her last transfer was to the UN Regional Service Centre in Entebbe, Uganda two weeks ago.
Following reports of her appointment to the investigation team on Sri Lanka, it is expected she will formally call on Sri Lanka’s envoy to the UN in Geneva as a gesture of courtesy within the next few days. Ambassador Aryasinha said yesterday that she has not communicated with him so far. The OHCHR led investigation on Sri Lanka to probe into serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties, was mandated through a US-backed resolution at the 25th UNHRC session held in March with 23 countries voting in favour. The 26th UNHRC session that is to commence tomorrow is scheduled to continue until June 27 and a range of interactive discussions with the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and association as well as several other events such as a panel discussion on the safety of journalists and on preventing and eliminating child, early and forced marriage are scheduled to take place.