According to the western media, the United Nations Human Rights Council has renewed its mandate to collect and preserve evidence of alleged wartime human rights crimes in Sri Lanka. According to the details, a 19-point resolution was brought by 37 countries including Britain, Canada, and the United States, and was passed with 20 votes in favor and seven against.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Sri Lanka to get a grip on its economic crisis and prosecute former and current public officials who triggered the country’s worst financial crisis and plunged the population of 22 million into soaring inflation, currency depreciation and severe food and fuel shortages.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister strongly objected to the resolution enouncing Sri Lanka’s domestic, economic, and financial policy matters. Sri Lanka’s close ally Beijing opposed the resolution, and India, formerly the strong supporter of the Tamil resistance movement abstained from the vote.
The world is gradually categorizing into warring groups, bloc politics is rapidly taking root in international affairs while the structural flaws and fragility of various global forums are becoming more evident in the contemporary world.
The western powers led by the US are using the United Nations and its subsidiaries including the UNSC, UNGA, IAEA, OHCHR, and ICJ along with International Criminal Court and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to censure their opponents and enhance their strategic interests across the globe.
The powerful western bloc has started using coercive political, diplomatic, trade and economic measures to malign and persuade the non-aligned nations like Sri Lanka to punish for their disobedience.
Previously, the western bloc tabled a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council requesting a debate on alleged human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region that was rejected by the world body. Later, the western bloc initiated a move against a weak nation which is presumably a friend of their proposed foe.
Presently, the UN body has commented in depth on corruption, bad governance, financial and economic issues in Sri Lanka which is obviously an interference and politicization in the internal matters of a sovereign member state.
Ironically, the western allies remained unable to highlight and discuss the ongoing gross human rights issues and crimes against humanity in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Palestine, Myanmar, and several other countries across the world and have chosen typically selected items to promote their global agenda.
The UN Rights Body had renewed its mandate to observe Sri Lanka’s progress towards establishing a credible investigation into alleged war crimes during the Sri Lankan civil war that ended about a decade ago and highlighted the causes of the financial crisis, and alleged economic crimes committed by Sri Lankan administrators.
Although, the world body went beyond its mandate and vowed to prosecute Sri Lankan officials involved in economic crimes against the public, hence the world body has sufficient evidence of gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity by Indian troops in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), while International Criminal Court is investgating Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian occupied territory, which merits attention of the UN Human Rights Council.
Apparently, the world forum should take a uniform course regarding human rights issues across the globe instead of highlighting selected cases that undermines its credibility and global Human Rights Convention.
