"Sri Lanka should withdraw as a co-sponsor" - MR on Geneva Human Rights resolution

COLOMBO (News 1st): Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa announced his stance to parliament today (March 14), regarding the Geneva Human Rights resolution. The Opposition Leader said that he believes Sri Lanka should withdraw as a co-sponsor. "It is reported through the media that a hybrid court will be formed for violations related to human rights in Sri Lanka and a UN human rights office should be established here as well. The stance of the president and the prime minister is contradicting and I believe that we should withdraw from this motion" he added. Responding to Rajapaksa, the Minister of External Affairs Tilak Marapana pointed out that it was during his (Rajapaksa's) time as President, General Secretary of the UN Ban Ki-moon was invited to visit Sri Lanka. "During this, they made a joint statement of protecting human rights violations following the war and agreed to take steps for the accountability and reconciliation. It did not stop there, on May 27th in 2009, the government back then made a proposal to the human rights council and this was passed and divided the council," said Marapana. The Minister went on to say that 3 resolutions were passed in the human rights council because of Rajapaksa's failure to implement recommendations during 2012, 2013 and 2014, as per the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Report on May 15, 2010 which was made by Rajapaksa. "Because of the 2014 proposal, Sri Lanka came under international investigation for the first time. Following the presidential elections in 2015, the opportunity for all domestic processes for human rights-related actions was halted," he added. When MP Mahinda Amaraweera interfered to point out that the Minister is avoiding the question raised by Opposition Leader Rajapaksa, Minister Marapana stated: "There is an issue here, between the report of the Human Rights Commissioner and the proposal that we asked. We do not accept all facts mentioned in these reports. This was what we did in 2017 and we have highlighted the differences for the past 02 years."