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Inquiry finds Sri Lanka war crimes evidence - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
An inquiry by the non-profit Public Interest Advocacy Centre has found new evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Sri Lankan civil war, adding weight to calls for an independent international investigation. Sri Lanka is strongly resisting the push.
Permanent Peoples’ Tribunals and the pursuit of justice in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, a 30 year-long civil war between Sri Lanka government troops and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the latter. Particularly horrifying was the fate of civilians caught up in the merciless slaughter of the final few months of combat that left between 40,000 and 146,000 people dead (the exact numbers are yet to be determined). After examining evidence a UN panel of experts concluded in a March 2011 report that both government troops and rebels had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Over the past four years forensic experts and human rights lawyers have gone on to corroborate the truth of these allegations by pulling together mobile phone videos, photographs and numerous eyewitness accounts, some of which appears in a three-part documentary by Britain’s Channel Four, known as Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.
Worse, grave human rights violations still occur due to high levels of militarisation in areas where large numbers of Tamils live: disappearances, rape and acts of ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile political prisoners and captured LTTE cadre remain in indefinite detention and are subject to torture and rape.
Mounting evidence of war crimes led to an international call for accountability by the Sri Lanka government. Colombo denied committing war crimes and refused to appoint a domestic commission of inquiry. When the international community threatened to pursue an international investigation into alleged war crimes, Sri Lanka appointed the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). But the LLRC not only fell short of acceptable international norms of independence, but its mandate was not to investigate war crimes, but issues of why the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 failed and preventing its recurrence.
From November 2011 onwards the international community has pursued two interrelated goals: a) that Sri Lanka appoints a credible domestic commission of inquiry and b) implementing the recommendations of the LLRC. Two resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) – 2012 and 2013 – reflect these concerns.
But Colombo has continued to stonewall. Finally in October last year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the UNHRC, “if significant steps were not taken before … March (2014), the international community would be forced to launch its own inquiry.”
In the face of the high commissioner’s call civil society hoped that the international community frustrated by Colombo’s stubborn refusal to implement some measure of accountability or stem the continuing impunity would move towards calling for international accountability mechanisms.
However, states began backtracking despite the mounting evidence of war crimes. The US government remains focussed on the LLRC, ignoring warnings by Amnesty International that “if international policymakers continue to treat the LLRC as a potentially credible domestic accountability mechanism capable of adequately addressing alleged violations as serious as war crimes, despite all evidence to the contrary, they contribute to dangerous delays in providing real accountability, justice and reparations for the victims.”
In December 2013, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal said, “[t]hrough the LLRC, there are a set of recommendations. I think that those are exactly the points that we’d like to see progress on, and we’ve encouraged them to do that.” The British government declared that it would push for an international investigation only if Sri Lanka did not begin a credible internal investigation into war crimes before March 2014.
Despite four years of not only stonewalling but of a perpetuating new human rights violations, Sri Lanka still retains stature in the eyes of Britain and the US to carry out a credible war crimes investigation. The only explanation for such bizarre thinking is that, as in the case of Syria and in Sri Lanka too, western capitals want to remain engaged with Colombo because it would increase their leverage to pursue their narrowly perceived national interests rather than international law and accountability.
In the face such blatant pussyfooting bodies such as the PPT perform important functions. They collect and document masses of evidence. They analyse that evidence against standards of international law. And by giving a forum to voices that realpolitik shuts out, they supplement the formal processes.
The first PPT on Sri Lanka in Dublin in 2010 established that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed. The verdict of the second in Bremen in December said, “The panel of 11 judges unanimously found Sri Lanka guilty of the crime of genocide against the Eelam Tamil people, and that this crime continues today.”
We can only hope that in the run-up to the UNHRC sessions in March and beyond, the forthright judgement of the tribunal in Bremen will establish that national interests need not only be for narrow goals of realpolitick. National interests include fighting for justice in the world. Because in the long run a just and equitable world order makes the burden of governance less onerous in all parts of the world.
An inquiry by the non-profit Public Interest Advocacy Centre has found new evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Sri Lankan civil war, adding weight to calls for an independent international investigation. Sri Lanka is strongly resisting the push.
Permanent Peoples’ Tribunals and the pursuit of justice in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, a 30 year-long civil war between Sri Lanka government troops and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the latter. Particularly horrifying was the fate of civilians caught up in the merciless slaughter of the final few months of combat that left between 40,000 and 146,000 people dead (the exact numbers are yet to be determined). After examining evidence a UN panel of experts concluded in a March 2011 report that both government troops and rebels had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Over the past four years forensic experts and human rights lawyers have gone on to corroborate the truth of these allegations by pulling together mobile phone videos, photographs and numerous eyewitness accounts, some of which appears in a three-part documentary by Britain’s Channel Four, known as Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.
Worse, grave human rights violations still occur due to high levels of militarisation in areas where large numbers of Tamils live: disappearances, rape and acts of ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile political prisoners and captured LTTE cadre remain in indefinite detention and are subject to torture and rape.
Mounting evidence of war crimes led to an international call for accountability by the Sri Lanka government. Colombo denied committing war crimes and refused to appoint a domestic commission of inquiry. When the international community threatened to pursue an international investigation into alleged war crimes, Sri Lanka appointed the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). But the LLRC not only fell short of acceptable international norms of independence, but its mandate was not to investigate war crimes, but issues of why the Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 failed and preventing its recurrence.
From November 2011 onwards the international community has pursued two interrelated goals: a) that Sri Lanka appoints a credible domestic commission of inquiry and b) implementing the recommendations of the LLRC. Two resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) – 2012 and 2013 – reflect these concerns.
But Colombo has continued to stonewall. Finally in October last year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the UNHRC, “if significant steps were not taken before … March (2014), the international community would be forced to launch its own inquiry.”
In the face of the high commissioner’s call civil society hoped that the international community frustrated by Colombo’s stubborn refusal to implement some measure of accountability or stem the continuing impunity would move towards calling for international accountability mechanisms.
However, states began backtracking despite the mounting evidence of war crimes. The US government remains focussed on the LLRC, ignoring warnings by Amnesty International that “if international policymakers continue to treat the LLRC as a potentially credible domestic accountability mechanism capable of adequately addressing alleged violations as serious as war crimes, despite all evidence to the contrary, they contribute to dangerous delays in providing real accountability, justice and reparations for the victims.”
In December 2013, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal said, “[t]hrough the LLRC, there are a set of recommendations. I think that those are exactly the points that we’d like to see progress on, and we’ve encouraged them to do that.” The British government declared that it would push for an international investigation only if Sri Lanka did not begin a credible internal investigation into war crimes before March 2014.
Despite four years of not only stonewalling but of a perpetuating new human rights violations, Sri Lanka still retains stature in the eyes of Britain and the US to carry out a credible war crimes investigation. The only explanation for such bizarre thinking is that, as in the case of Syria and in Sri Lanka too, western capitals want to remain engaged with Colombo because it would increase their leverage to pursue their narrowly perceived national interests rather than international law and accountability.
In the face such blatant pussyfooting bodies such as the PPT perform important functions. They collect and document masses of evidence. They analyse that evidence against standards of international law. And by giving a forum to voices that realpolitik shuts out, they supplement the formal processes.
The first PPT on Sri Lanka in Dublin in 2010 established that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed. The verdict of the second in Bremen in December said, “The panel of 11 judges unanimously found Sri Lanka guilty of the crime of genocide against the Eelam Tamil people, and that this crime continues today.”
We can only hope that in the run-up to the UNHRC sessions in March and beyond, the forthright judgement of the tribunal in Bremen will establish that national interests need not only be for narrow goals of realpolitick. National interests include fighting for justice in the world. Because in the long run a just and equitable world order makes the burden of governance less onerous in all parts of the world.
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