Hundreds Die in Sri Lanka, as UN Focuses on Lebanon By Patrick Goodenough August 09, 2006 CNS News Original Source: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200608/INT20060809a.html (CNSNews.com) - While the world's attention is riveted on the Middle East, a raging conflict in Sri Lanka is drawing relatively little attention from the United Nations, despite the fact that almost 600 lives have been lost over the same period as the Israeli-Hizballah fighting. The latest flare-up in a long and brutal civil war began two weeks ago, when the Sri Lankan army launched an air and ground offensive against the LTTE Tamil Tigers after the terrorist group cut off a water channel in territory it controls, reportedly leaving 60,000 people without water. The water blockade was lifted Tuesday, but not before hundreds of people had been killed, and more than 20,000 people had fled from the conflict zone, leaving a four year-old ceasefire in tatters. Among the dead were 17 Sri Lankan staffers of a French humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) involved in tsunami relief work. They were found lying face-down, each having been shot in the head, execution-style. The army and LTTE accused each other of the killing, and the Action Against Hunger NGO called for a full investigation. Violence continued Tuesday, when a powerful bomb exploded in the capital, Colombo. Three people were killed in the blast, and among those injured was a veteran political opponent of the LTTE, the terrorists' apparent target. Most aid agencies withdrew from the area, and after threats from the LTTE, a European Union ceasefire-monitoring mission said it was pulling its members out of the country. The two-decade conflict between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and predominantly Hindu Tamil minority has cost more than 64,000 lives. Over the past month alone -- as the current Mideast crisis intensified -- at least 593 people have been killed, including more than 200 civilians, 65 security force personnel and some 300 Tamil Tigers, according to the India-based Institute for Conflict Management's South Asia Terrorism Portal. During the current escalation, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has issued one two-paragraph statement -- on August 3 -- expressing concern about the violence and its consequences, and urging the parties to resume peace talks. By contrast, Annan's website lists five statements on the situation in Lebanon, including one delivered in Jerusalem and one in Rome. The Security Council has held 11 meetings since August 12 on the situation in the Middle East, and none on Sri Lanka. All eyes on Israel Various U.N. human rights bodies have also given considerable attention to the situation in Lebanon, while Sri Lanka has not received a mention. The new Human Rights Council (HRC) is preparing to hold its second ever special session shortly, after Arab states supported by China, Cuba and others requested a meeting to consider and take action on the gross human rights violations by Israel in Lebanon. Last month, the HRC held its first special session -- on Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip. One month earlier, the HRC held its inaugural annual session, and considered just two country-specific situations -- Israel/Gaza and Sudan/Darfur. The session ended with the passage of a single country-specific resolution, condemning Israel. The HRC was established because of concerns that its now-defunct predecessor, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, had been tainted by politicization and the presence of rights violating nations. A major complaint was its disproportionate focus on Israel. Other U.N. bodies have also weighed in in recent weeks: -- On July 21, six U.N. human rights experts issued a joint statement, calling for an end to the fighting. Apart from a single sentence noting that large numbers of Israelis had been forced into bomb shelters, were fleeing the north, and had their water supplies affected, the statement dwelt entirely on the problems faced by the Lebanese. The experts are people who deal with the rights of internally-displaced persons, the right to housing, the right to food, the right to freedom of expression, the right to health, and the right to education. -- U.N. high commissioner for human rights Louise Arbour issued two statements condemning the targeting of Lebanese and Israeli civilians, one of them calling for accountability for any breaches of international law. -- The U.N.'s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination suspended its usual session last week to debate the conflict, despite protests from American and Danish experts on the panel that the situation did not fall within the committee's mandate. Some members attributed Israel's campaign against Hizballah to anti-Arab racism. -- The U.N. subcommission on human rights opened its three-week session Monday by debating and adopting a statement expressing its deep grief and outrage at the massive denial and violation of human rights in Lebanon. At least one member of the 26-person body of legal experts, a Briton, pointed out that it specifically had been instructed not to pass country-specific resolutions. In a statement Tuesday, Hillel Neuer of U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, said the greatest losers in the U.N.'s lopsided focus on Israel were the victims of human rights abuses around the world. Don't other world crises -- mass rape in Darfur, four million killed in Democratic Republic of Congo, repression and strife in Burma, East Timor, Colombia, Somalia -- deserve special sessions?