Hon.
Chief Secretary of Uttaranchal - Shri. S. K. Das, Chairperson
of RLEK Shri. Avdesh Kaushal, Members of the RLEK Fraternity,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I feel very honoured and in fact happy to be back again
at RLEK: This time to participate in the Laying of the
Foundation Stone for the Indo Sri Lanka Human Rights
Centre for South Asian Countries, and in the releasing
of the handbook on Capacity building of Women in Local
Governance in South Asian Countries here at the RLEK
Auditorium.
I thank the chairperson of RLEK, Shri Avdesh Kaushal
for inviting me today and for granting me this privilege.
I first came to your campus in 1999 for your Human Rights
Conference. Since then I have visited your campus at
least 5 times. I must complain, however, that my friend
Aveshji has in fact
visited me in Sri Lanka only once!
I am therefore no stranger to this campus and to its
work. I am no outsider anymore. I am sure Shri Avdesh
Kaushal will not grudge me the privilege ofer of the
RLEK family. Not only have I come here several times.
On each of my visits I have met many people out here,
and made friends with several legal luminaries of India,
- friendships I value very much.
This time I bring with me the greetings and best wishes
of Sri Lanka's Human Rights Community for the Human
Rights Practitioners of this esteemed Human Rights Organization
of my country's closest friend and neighbour, India.
As many of you are aware, I cut my teeth in politics
over 30 years ago as a human rights activist. I have
remained a human rights activist ever since. This is
perhaps another reason to attract me to your activities,
as I feel most comfortable in your challenging human
rights environment. As a human rights activist on the
one hand, and the head of a neighbouring country on
the other, permit me, Mr. Chairman, to comment very
briefly on what has impressed me as being some of your
more important achievements where our region is concerned.
Over the past several years, RLEKs Human Rights Centre
has played an important role to disseminate a Human
Rights Culture in the SAARC region. It has done so through
its training courses in which activists from the region
participate each year. By training your students to
look at human rights
from a global perspective, you have created in our region
and outside, a sensitized cadre of global citizens to
carry the torch of human rights to the different parts
of the SAARC region. For this, you must be strongly
commended.
As we all know, the South Asian region is beset with
problems of human rights violations. The impunity with
which the LTTE in Sri Lanka violates the human rights
of the Tamil-speaking people in particular and the Sri
Lankan people in general is a glaring example of this.
Any Tamil leader who does not agree with their cruel
and inhuman modes of operation is killed by them. Dissent
is not allowed by them from any section of the Tamil
community. A diversity of views, - the hallmark of any
democracy, - has no place in their order of things.
The Sri Lankan government has always offered to negotiate
with them across the table and craft a solution that
respects human rights and democratic values. They have
always either rejected our efforts or made their own
positions impossible. It is against backgrounds such
as this, that RLEKs
work in the South Asian region must be appreciated.
We in Sri Lanka have had to adopt emergency measures
to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity
of our country threatened by the menace of terrorism.
But even at a time like this we remain deeply committed
to the promotion and protection of the human rights
of all our citizens. Our government has taken firm action,
- both administrative and executive in nature, - to
ensure that the violation of human rights in any form
is not tolerated. I have ensured that the law of the
land is enforced without exception, and all those responsible
for human rights violations are brought before the law
and justice is enforced on them.
To ensure that all complaints relating to alleged human
rights violations are inquired into, impartially and
in accordance with the relevant international norms
and standards, I have appointed a powerful Commission
of inquiry to investigate and inquire into serious violations
of human rights. The work of this Commission comprising
highly respected persons representing all ethnic communities
and all segments of civil society, will be observed
by a group of internationally recognized independent
and eminent persons. This group will be headed by a
former Chief justice of India, Justice P.N.Bhagwathi.
This model has met with approval from a group of foreign
nations as well as from the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights. They will be nominating persons to
this group to function as international observers. I
am advised that no other sovereign nation has ever before
instituted such a
unique mechanism to investigate and inquire into human
rights violations in their country.
Apart from Human Rights, our South Asian region is also
beset with problems of Local Self Governance. Here too,
RLEK has worked successfully to establish linkages beyond
national boundaries to collectively address these issues.
We ourselves in Sri Lanka are very interested in these
issues. We have stretched out, for example, to study
the experience of the Indian Panchayati Raj System with
the idea of learning lessons from it for crafting our
own Sri Lankan solution to our own ethnic problem, with
the maximum devolution of power. Against this background,
the handbook you release today on Capacity-building
of Women in Local Governance for South Asian Countries
will, I am sure, be useful to us as well.
Let me conclude, therefore, by congratulating you on
your achievements both in the field of Human Rights
and of Local Self Governance. The relevance of your
work for my own country, Sri Lanka, only goes to reflect
its importance for the other SAARC countries as well.
I thank you once again for inviting me, and giving me
this opportunity of coming back to RLEK yet again. Thank
you.
Shri Avdesh Kaushal, Chairperson
of RLEK, welcoming President Rajapaksa said: "In
today's world of strife and terrorism, where leaders
and governments are compelled to be partisan, ruled
by compulsions of local sentiments and political gain,
we salute you for walking the "middle path"
even in most testing times.
Your Excellency has also agreed to
institute an international body of independent observers
to ensure transparency of the commission to probe "abductions,
disappearances and extra-judicial killings" in
Sri Lanka. It has been recently in the news that Your
Excellency has ordered an independent investigation
on the 'child soldiers'. We hope others in power would
emulate your qualities of neutrality and honesty.
"Moreover, Sri Lanka is
the only sovereign nation in the world, which in the
larger interest of peace and harmony has agreed to negotiate
across the
table with the LTTE, a banned organization in most of
the world. India to
has not remained unaffected by the heinous and condemnable
activities of the
LTTE. The murder of one of our most outstanding and
dynamic young leaders,
Rajiv Gandhi, late Prime Minister of India and a dear
friend of mine, by the
LTTE is unpardonable. Forces within and outside the
Government who
sympathize with the perpetrators of such an outrageous
act should be
condemned irrespective of whether they are politicians
or just citizens."
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