“UN human rights investigators are trained to spot fraudulent submissions” Prince Zeid – How come UNHRC was mum on the ‘doctored’ forms sent by LTTE-TNA against Sri Lanka?

The new head of the UN Human Rights Council deems fit to insult a democratically elected UN Member country for bringing to the attention of the Human Rights world body the arrest of an unrehabilitated LTTE cadre collecting blank forms with signatures and handing them to a Tamil National Alliance member who hands these over to another party that enters bogus details incriminating the Sri Lankan Armed forces which are therein sent as ‘genuine’ submissions seeking ‘witness protection’ and confidentiality and used to declare Sri Lanka as guilty of war crimes and bring in command guilt against a targeted list of people. If UNHRC has investigators trained to spot fraudulent submissions why has the UNHRC not revealed it has been in receipt of such submissions before the arrest? If not for the discovery of blank forms with signatures we would not have known that a very systematic effort has been put in place to fix Sri Lanka with lies? This is the crux of the matter and this gives Sri Lanka every right to question the credibility of the UNHRC for despite having trained investigators to spot fraud the UNHRC Investigators have kept mum intentionally or they do not know how to detect forms signed by one party and details entered by another! The arrest has brought sweet justice to the injustice that would have taken place!

Thus, while UNHRC and the UN Secretary General deem fit to use very undiplomatic and uncouth language in an official statements attacking the Sri Lankan Government released to the international public accusing Sri Lanka what should not be forgotten is that it is the UNHRC and its Investigators that have been put into a very embarrassing situation for they had not disclosed receiving submissions that probably would have been signed by the same person over 100 times and entries done by some party elsewhere who are paid to enter lies to incriminate the Sri Lankan Army and set the pace for an argument that would enable the UN Investigators to charge the leaders for accountability!

That gameplan has now been blown into the open with the arrest and the information that is coming out from that arrest has unearthed the involvement of a plum set of players too – foreign envoys, diplomats, foreign embassies, Tamil lawyers, foreign funded NGOs writing the bogus submissions … a whole can of worms has now come out opening a pandoras box of lies and deceit to which UNHRC has nowhere to bury its head.

Without accepting guilt it is immoral and unethical for the UNHRC to attack the Sri Lankan state as it is now doing in a pre-emptive strategy to water down the embarrassment.

It is a challenge before the UNHRC to deny that they have received repeat signatures in the submissions received so far!

It is a challenge for the UNHRC to deny that they have accepted scores of submissions that were compiled by 3^rd parties after signatures only were given.

It is a challenge for the UNHRC to admit whether they contemplated submissions being sent which had signatures by one party and entries made by others and whether they have a mechanism to detect these – if they have the UNHRC is guilty of withholding this information from the public because if not for the arrest Sri Lanka would not have been aware of a scheme being set up to frame charges against Sri Lanka’s leaders and the Sri Lankan troops!

In the light of the UNHRC’s own guilt and secrecy emerging as a major questionable offence, what right does the UNHRC head have to in a public statement say

“This continuing campaign of distortion and disinformation about the investigation, as well as the insidious attempts to prevent possible bona fide witnesses from submitting information to the investigating team, is an affront to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which mandated the investigation”.  

If there is any continuing campaign of distortion and disinformation – it is done not be Sri Lanka but by all others trying to frame Sri Lanka.

What are the ‘insidious attempts to prevent possible bonafide witnesses from submitting information’ when it has now emerged that blank forms are being collected with only signatures (that too with repeat signatures) and another party is filling up bogus accounts!

The last part of the UNHRC Head’s statement reads thus

“The Government of Sri Lanka has point blank refused to cooperate with the investigation despite being explicitly requested by the Human Rights Council to do so.” “Such a refusal does not, however, undermine the integrity of the investigation set up by the Council—instead it raises concerns about the integrity of the government in question. Why would governments with nothing to hide go to such extraordinary lengths to sabotage an impartial investigation?”  

Given that the UNHRC did not disclose that it has been in receipt of fraudulent submissions before the arrest of the LTTE with signatures on blank forms, the Sri Lankan Government has a key argument for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

However, Sri Lankan Government not taking part certainly does not impede in the UNHRC investigators carrying out a clean and transparent investigation.

It is not the integrity of the Sri Lankan Government that is now put into question it is that of the UNHRC and the entire investigation itself.

It is not Sri Lanka that has something to hide, it is the UNHRC because Sri Lanka hasn’t sabotaged the investigation, if at all it is the people giving false submissions who have, while UNHRC is guilty of accepting these false submissions as ‘genuine bonafide witness’ testimonies.

We know now and the UNHRC is embarrassed to now say so that they have been in receipt of such false submissions – the question is how many has the UNHRC received and how many have they accepted and based on how many false accounts has the final Report been written.

What a windfall for the Sri Lankans who believe in truth and fair play because the arrest of the LTTE, the involvement of the Tamil National Alliance, the foreign envoys, diplomats, foreign NGOs and others involved in this dirty gameplan have all now been exposed from this single arrest that has blown the UNHRC investigation in its face and the embarrassment is irreparable.

– by Shenali D Waduge