When Ceasefires Fail

by James Ross, Foreign Policy in Focus, September 15, 2006

Since major fighting resumed in April, killings of civilians have occurred both on and off the battlefield. Last month the Tamil Tigers assassinated a respected Tamil member of the government's Peace Secretariat and dispatched a suicide bomber who killed seven people in the capital, Colombo. [Note that casualties in government-controlled areas, although grossly smaller in number, are given priority. This sets the tone for the rest of the article.-- Editor] Government jetfighters indiscriminately bombed a building deep in LTTE-held territory, killing at least 19 young women and girls. The government-backed Karuna group, a breakaway faction of the LTTE, has abducted more than 100 children into its forces since June. [Note that some events in the NorthEast are mentioned, which has not often been true in the past. This is probably because of the higher number of Western NGOs & UN officials in the NE, who are now leaving in droves. Incidents not personally witnessed by an outsider are considered 'unverifiable,' except when vouchsafed by a government official or an NGO located in Colombo led by an English-speaker. In addition, Rajapakse is not as well liked by outsiders as Kumaratunge or Jayawardene.]

Both sides have blamed the other for the deteriorating situation and, in this respect, both are right. The Tamil Tigers used the relative calm of the ceasefire to target and kill more than 200 people, primarily Tamils they perceived to be opponents. [Ross needs to note that these were mostly people carrying arms in the employ of the Defense Ministry in violation of a specific provision of the ceasefire and who were targeting LTTE cadres. See the Timeline of Violence. ] They continue to abduct children into their forces. [See the Child Protection Authority's report that discusses underage recruitment. Abduction is a loaded term which Ross would be hard-put to prove. Every parent who lives in government-controlled territory who has a son or daughter who joins the resistance will claim they were abducted for their own protection.] And in the past year, they have engaged in increasingly audacious attacks, including the assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister, in an apparent effort to goad the government into atrocities of its own. [The government claims the LTTE assassinated Kadirgamar, so it must be true. Morally and legally, who is responsible for attacks on civilians, no matter how much 'goading' occurs? Similarly, one could say that the occupation of the NorthEast by over half the government's security forces, the widespread killing of civilians and intense aerial shelling is 'goading' the Tamils to retaliate.]

And that has apparently worked. Since the election of Mahinda Rajapakse as president last November with the support of Sinhalese ultra-nationalists, the Sri Lankan armed forces have committed a wave of abuses, almost always against Tamils. During an outburst of communal violence in April in Trincomalee, soldiers and police stood by for two hours while Sinhalese thugs torched Tamil businesses. Several cold-blooded massacres appear to have been carried out by government forces, most recently the execution-style slaying of 17 Sri Lankans working with the international relief organization Action Against Hunger following fighting in the eastern town of Muttur.

The renewal of major fighting has displaced more than 220,000 people from their homes throughout the north and east, and many more are in need of humanitarian assistance. Neither the government nor the LTTE has taken sufficient action to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches these threatened populations. The Ministry of Defense has placed unnecessary obstacles in the way of humanitarian agencies, including new registration requirements that appear designed more to discourage humanitarian action than regulate it. Even after the end of major fighting in Jaffna, the government and the Tamil Tigers have hindered humanitarian assistance from reaching the peninsula. [The Tigers are insisting that civilian assistance be provided by the land route through the A9 highway to assure that such assistance is not used as a cover for the military supply of Jaffna, a tactic the security forces has widely used in the past. The government is insisting that supply be done by air and sea for exactly this reason. Ross should check out the use of civilians as human shields by the military along its supply routes.]

Official mechanisms to address the longstanding problem of impunity in Sri Lanka have been ineffectual. The government consistently fails to prosecute those in the security forces responsible for killings. Colombo announces investigations that go nowhere, and the rare witness who is brave enough to come forward invariably faces death threats. The president has effectively dismantled the national Human Rights Commission, an important life preserver for civilians at risk. [Yes.]

The failing ceasefire from 2002 has been monitored by the Norwegian-led Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, which has put Nordic observers on the ground in both government and LTTE-held areas. The monitoring mission's basic flaw was to focus solely on violations of the ceasefire agreement rather than the much broader category of conflict-related abuses. As a result, the LTTE and the Karuna group committed many atrocities and abuses, which contributed to the recent breakdown of the truce. [This is the view from Colombo. Isn't preventing the civilian population from fishing an abuse, for instance? How about the navy taking a major portion of the catch of those few allowed to fish? Perhaps the Tamil civilian population does not have the resources to document these abuses as thoroughly as the government does, but isn't it HRW's role to help the underdog do that?] The lesson is that human rights violations cannot be detached from broader security considerations without serious consequences. [An important point, which is why NESOHR was founded. Other human rights organizations need to make a fuss when two of its founders are killed in the space of a year. When they do not, it shows their ideological perspective.]

Although historically the United States has taken little interest in Sri Lanka, the Bush administration for several years has been sharply critical of the Tamil Tigers. The United States therefore has important credibility with the Sri Lankan government. While Washington has urged a halt to the fighting, it should use its influence to press for a stronger international presence in the country. Along with the European Union, India, Norway, and Japan, the United States should promote the establishment of a UN human rights monitoring presence in Sri Lanka modeled on the current, very successful Nepal mission. Sri Lankan and international human rights organizations have urged governments to raise the issue at the upcoming session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Although the United States is not a member of the council, its support would certainly give a boost to the European states that are already seriously considering the proposal. [This is a good idea, but only if any monitoring presence can be a neutral party. So far, few international entities have had this ability, HRW being a notable example. With Tamils comprising 95% of the civilian casualties, one third of the Tamil population refugees overseas and another third internally displaced, it is hard to not to think that the government is the aggressor against whom the people of the NorthEast need protection. Unless one has ideological blinkers against non-state actors on, of course.]

A wave of depression has hit many Sri Lankans since the renewal of major combat operations in their country. Unless concerned governments step in, war will return with a vengeance, and then the international community will have to pick up the pieces. [The people of the NorthEast and the Tamil diaspora are the most depressed of all. Only a political solution which frees the NorthEast from the interference of the government in Colombo and ends the occupation of its armed forces will allow an end to war.]

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FPIF contributor James Ross is senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of its forthcoming report “Improving Civilian Protection in Sri Lanka.” He recently returned from two weeks in Sri Lanka.

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