Sri Lanka: UN experts submit report
Sri Lanka: UN experts submit report
(New York,
April 12, 2011) – The report by a panel of experts
to
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on April
12, 2011, about
laws-of-war violations in Sri Lanka
should be used to pave the way for
justice, Human Rights
Watch said today. Ban commissioned the report in
May 2010
after the Sri Lankan government failed to
investigate
violations committed in the final months of
its decades-long conflict
with the separatist Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Ban's office said today
that he will make the report public after he
shares it
with the Sri Lankan government.
"Secretary-General Ban's
creation of a panel of experts and his
decision to make
the report public show that the UN has not forgotten
Sri
Lanka's war victims," said Brad Adams, Asia director at
Human
Rights Watch. "In the face of two years of
stonewalling by the
government, the public release of
this report will help move justice
forward in Sri Lanka."
Serious abuses by both government and LTTE forces, which
may have
amounted to war crimes and crimes against
humanity, escalated in the
last five months of the war,
during which tens of thousands of
civilians were killed
and injured. On May 23, 2009, shortly after the
end of
the war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa endorsed a
statement
promising Ban that the government would
investigate alleged
laws-of-war violations.
Almost two
years later, however, the government has taken no steps
to
hold anyone on either side of the conflict accountable
for serious
violations of international law, including
war crimes and crimes
against humanity. Two ad hoc bodies
established by the government
after the conflict have
failed to lead to any criminal investigations,
let alone
prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said.
The government
opposed Ban's appointment of the panel, calling it
an
"unwarranted and unnecessary interference with a
sovereign nation."
Shortly after the panel was appointed,
a government minister staged a
disruptive demonstration
outside the UN headquarters in Sri Lanka's
capital,
Colombo, which eventually led the UN to recall its
resident
coordinator temporarily and to close one of its
offices. The
government has refused to cooperate with the
panel or to allow its
members to visit Sri Lanka on
acceptable conditions, contending that
its own domestic
mechanisms are capable of ensuring accountability.
However, a committee of experts created by the Sri Lankan
government
in November 2009 in response to a United
States State Department
report on wartime abuses never
finished its work or published any
report.
A second
body, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission,
was
only empowered to hold hearings – not to conduct
serious
investigations. It had no program to protect
victims or witnesses who
testified before it, and it
demonstrated a strong government bias in
the conduct of
its hearings. Its interim recommendations in
September
2010 did not contain a single recommendation
related to justice or
accountability. It is slated to
submit its report to the government in
May, but there is
no requirement to make the report public, either in
full
or in part. The government has not released the report of
a
previous commission set up by Rajapaksa, the 2006
Presidential
Commission of Inquiry.
"The government
has opposed the panel of experts from the beginning
and
has done nothing to suggest its position has changed," Adams
said.
"UN members that care about justice for grave
crimes should now make
sure that they show all possible
support for Ban's efforts."
Sri Lankan officials continue
to insist, despite mounting evidence to
the contrary,
that the Sri Lankan armed forces committed no
violations
during the conflict's final months. In
response to the release of the
latest US annual human
rights report on April 8, which among other
allegations
said that extrajudicial killings and
enforced
disappearances continued to be a problem in Sri
Lanka, a military
spokesman said that "all these
allegations are baseless." Referring to
the last months
of the war, he continued, "The humanitarian operation
was
carried out under the law of war and we know that there have
been
no such acts committed by the armed forces."
On
April 7, however, Human Rights Watch released new
information
about enforced disappearance by the Sri Lanka
military during the
final days of the war, including
video footage of government soldiers
interrogating one of
the LTTE officers, who later "disappeared." A
military
spokesman said that all those taken into custody have
been
accounted for and their relatives notified. But
several women have
testified before the Lessons Learnt
and Reconciliation Commission and
filed complaints with
the police claiming that the military detained
their
husbands and that their wives have had no news about them
since.
"The lack of a single known criminal investigation
of any of the
numerous serious war crimes allegations in
two years speaks for
itself," Adams said. "The government
has demonstrated that
accountability and justice in Sri
Lanka will only come about through
international action."
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on violations of
the laws of
war in Sri Lanka, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/sri-lanka
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a
regional
non-governmental organisation that monitors
human rights in Asia,
documents violations and advocates
for justice and institutional
reform to ensure the
protection and promotion of these rights. The
Hong
Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
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