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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | UNHRC: India dilutes censure motion before voting with West against Sri Lanka

UNHRC: India dilutes censure motion before voting with West against Sri Lanka

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published Published on Mar 23, 2012   modified Modified on Mar 23, 2012

-The Economic Times

India on Thursday voted in favour of a US-sponsored censure motion against Sri Lanka in the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The government's domestic political compulsions seems to have prevailed over the country's strategic interests.

Twenty-four countries, including India, voted for the resolution and 15 against, while eight nations abstained. Among the countries which voted against the resolution were China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Maldives. India's decision was in line with the assurance Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave to the two Houses of Parliament that the government was `inclined' to back the UNHRC resolution. He was responding to the pressure piled up by the two Tamil parties, AIADMK and DMK, with the latter even threatening to pull out its ministers from the UPA government unless India went along with the US-sponsored move.

The two main Tamil parties were supported by the main Opposition, BJP, and Left parties too. The government reacted cautiously to the UNHRC voting. "We had to weigh pros and cons, and what we did was in line with our stand,'' the prime minister told newspersons in New Delhi after the vote. "We don't want to infringe on Sri Lanka's sovereignty but our concerns should be expressed so that Tamils get justice and dignity,'' he added.

The ministry of external affairs took a similar line, aimed at sending a signal to Colombo that it will remain engaged with it, notwithstanding the voting at UNHRC. "As a neighbour with thousands of years of cordial relations with Sri Lanka, with deep-rooted spiritual and cultural ties, we cannot remain untouched by developments in that country," the external affairs ministry said in a statement.

"We have been bound also by a shared quest for freedom and dignity. We will continue to remain engaged with the government of Sri Lanka to take forward the process of reconciliation to secure for all its citizens a future marked by equality, dignity, justice and self-respect,'' it added."

The development, nevertheless, is bound to have far-reaching implications on India's ties with Lanka. With China increasing its clout in the island nation, New Delhi will, in the coming days, have to be wary of the impact of its decision on Colombo-Beijing relations. "We were left with best of the bad bargain,'' said G Parthasarathy, strategic affairs expert and former high commissioner to Pakistan, "Firstly, we did not want to vote for the American resolution because it would have left us totally isolated in our Asian neighbourhood. No Asian country has supported the resolution but we were forced to vote for it because of domestic political compulsions.''

Given the pressure being exerted by the two Tamil parties, India, Parthasarathy maintained, had taken care to get the wording of the resolution changed so that it did not anger the Sri Lankans. "What we have succeeded in doing, which will be welcomed by Colombo privately, is diluting the earlier intrusive character of the resolution moved by the Americans,'' he said.

The retired diplomat, at the same time, said India's action will "diplomatically benefit China and Pakistan". However, another strategic expert, Brahma Chellaney, had a different take. "It allows us to pursue a policy based on self-interest and principle. It allows us to unfreeze our Sri Lanka policy because President Mahinda Rajapaksa was playing India against China to keep the former in line. As a result, the Indian policy on Sri Lanka became frozen.

Now, he finds himself in the company of China which, in a way, exposes him,'' he argued. Chellaney hailed the development as a good' one as "it will allow India to pursue a more assertive and clear-headed policy driven by our national interest.''

He did not feel it will have any adverse impact on India's ties with Colombo. "China has been building its relations with Sri Lanka despite India bending over backwards to accommodate Rajapaksa and protect him. It represented a failure of India. It was, therefore, high time India changed its policy,'' he said, adding, "Now, Rajapaksa finds himself in the company of other human rights-abusing autocrats. He will now be forced to seek India's help to try and end his international isolation.''

The Economic Times, 23 March, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/unhrc-india-dilutes-censure-motion-before-voting-with-west-against-sri-lanka/articleshow/12375263.cms


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