Rajiva Wijesinha

“ Underlying the various efforts to interfere in Sri Lanka is a doctrine known as the Responsibility to Protect. In what might be termed its pure form this was accepted by the United Nations some years back, and certainly, given the excesses that seem to have occurred in some countries, such a doctrine is understandable.
What it amounts to is that, when crimes against humanity are being committed, the United Nations has a responsibility to intervene, to protect those who might be victims of such crimes. ”

“ Gareth’s lecture turned out to have been written by Alan Keenan for, when he was challenged about falsehoods in it, he turned to Keenan to ask for an explanation. Most grotesque of these were the suggestions that there had been genocide and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka. ”

“ That is another story, which only emerged later, but just before the September session of the Human Rights Council, at which the British ambassador endeavoured to activate the resolution against Sri Lanka, Rama Mani invited a once distinguished politician called Gareth Evans to deliver the Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture. In her letter she encouraged him to make waves, and he certainly did so, in describing Sri Lanka as a situation that was ripe for the R2P doctrine. ”