Posts Categorized: Human Rights

Leaked Report on Sri Lanka Critical of U.N.

“The U.N. struggled to exert influence on the Government which, with the effective acquiescence of a post-9/11 world order, was determined to defeat militarily an organization designated as terrorist. Some have argued that many deaths could have been averted had the Security Council and the Secretariat, backed by the U.N. country team, spoken out loudly early on, notably by publicizing the casualty numbers. Others say that the question is less whether the U.N. should assume responsibility for the tragedy, but more whether it did everything it could to assist the victims.”

The World Failed Sri Lanka. And Continues to Do So.

Failure to respond to this crisis happened in Washington, DC, too. Anti-genocide groups that formed in the wake of the Darfur genocide did not rouse their constituencies around the mass atrocity in Sri Lanka. You barely heard from these groups, let alone see the kind of public awareness raising campaign that has made organizations like the Enough Project so effective in moving public opinion and shaping policy…The institutional standard bearers of the anti-genocide movement failed to respond to the singly worst atrocity since Darfur.

UN ‘Failed SL Civilians’ Says Internal Probe

“Events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond… during the final stages of the conflict and its aftermath, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of civilians.”

Army Inquiry On ‘War Crimes’ No Longer Credible

According to what the former Attorney-General Mohan Peiris told Xinhua newsagency on the same day (5 November), the Army Court of Inquiry has had only 50 sittings for the whole of last ten months. That is little more than one sitting per week. It has only recorded statements from only 20 witnesses. These statistics speak very poorly of the so-called investigations now going on or claimed to be going on. It is not clear how many cases or incidents that they have been investigating. All these are kept as guarded secrets. That is why these investigations are considered like ‘asking evidence from robber’s mother’ (horage ammagen sakki aheema). It should be kept in mind that these are only preliminary inquiries. For any military prosecution, the cases have to be filed before the General Court Martial.

Sri Lanka Must Abide By International Human Rights Standards

Of 26 voluntary commitments maden i 2008, Sri Lanka has fulfilled just two. Similarly,
out of 45 accepted recommendations, only 5 have been implemented. Continuing its
deteriorating human rights record, as of May 2009 Sri Lanka stands accused of war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and gross violations of human rights.

Amnesty: Continuing Impunity, Arbitrary Detentions

AI Enforced Disappearances Oct 30 2012 AI index: ASA 37/011/2012 30 October 2012 Sri Lanka: Continuing impunity, arbitrary detentions, torture and enforced disappearances On Thursday 1 November, the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka will take place – the first such review since May 2008, when the government… Read more »

Remembering Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields

An internal review panel studying what went wrong in the UN system’s response to Sri Lanka, commissioned by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and headed by the distinguished diplomat Charles Petrie, is due to report to Ban next month. All indications are that it will not be a pretty story. It is crucial that its findings be made public and acted upon.

TIC on ‘Hate Campaign’

The intimidating poster campaign is linked to Dr Saravanamuttu’s legal challenge of the Divineguma Bill in the Supreme Court. The proposed law intends to create a new Divineguma Department that will consume the Samurdhi poverty alleviation programme and the Southern and Hill Country Development authorities. The Bill encroaches into the functions of the Provincial Councils.

Sinhalicised Division Formalised in Mullaiththeevu

The Colombo government has issued a new map of Mullaiththeevu district on September 25, when SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa attended a ‘special’ District Development Council (DDC) meeting of Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Ki’linochchi…
Almost all of the 11,789 people belonging to 3,536 families in the ‘Weli Oya’ division are Sinhala settlers.

Wikileaks: US, Norway Planned To Arm-Twist SL

Hattrem summarized the Norwegian view of the challenges to finding out about war crimes: that in all likelihood only 2-3 army officers knew about any given illegal action, that orders were given verbally, that government officials will not give evidence, and that the Tamils are afraid to give evidence. Strommen suggested that although Williamson cannot use information given by the ICRC directly, that information may be used as a cross-check against information gathered from other sources. Stangeland said that the Norwegian government was shocked by the extent to which, in the last stages of the conflict, the Sri Lankan army and government (a) said that its actions were proportionate, which turned out to be false, and (b) violated every guaranteed civilian “safe zone” that was supposedly put into place.

‘Death toll in LTTE war HIGHER than Srebrenica, Syria’

The war against the LTTE, waged by the Mahinda Rajapakse government, may have restored peace in Sri Lanka. But thousands of Tamils paid the price for the so-called victory with their lives, journalist Frances Harrison tells Vicky Nanjappa.

Creating Historical Fiction on Mu’l’livaaykkaal

Julian Vigo: I got involved because I was working on child trafficking projects in Haiti and was approached by two different members of the UN who asked me to make a report about what they witnessed in Sri Lanka that resembled much of what they were seeing in Haiti.

ICG: Action Plan, But No Action

In the six months since the Human Rights Council’s March 2012 resolution on “Promoting Reconciliation and Accountability in Sri Lanka”, the government of Sri Lanka has taken no meaningful steps to implement the resolution’s core requirements or otherwise address the country’s culture of impunity and deepening crisis of the rule of law. The publication of a “national action plan” to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) does nothing the change this…

The Dialectics of a Genocide

The Fourth Eelam War IV ended in May 2009 and marked the decimation of the Tamil Tigers. By the end, this genocidal massacre claimed between 40,000 and 100,000 civilian lives. In June this year, I had the opportunity to interview TamilNet.com’s chief correspondent in the Vanni, Lokeesan who stayed on in Mullivaaikkal until a few… Read more »

Black July – The Ghosts of Chemmani

Review – From  Pogroms to Massacres and Mass-Graves by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Sunday Leader, June 20, 1999 [Editorial comment:  Tamils have endured a multitude of atrocities under the rule of the majority in Sri Lanka. It is critical to review these historic events (massacres and mass graves)  since the latent emotions –  based on myths or… Read more »

Black July – Riots That Led to War

Twenty years on by Frances Harrison, BBC, July 23, 2003 BBC correspondent in Colombo Twenty years ago, this week, saw the outbreak of anti-Tamil riots in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo that changed the course of the nation’s history The riots, triggered by the killing of a group of soldiers in the Tamil north of… Read more »

Black July – Culture of Silence

The Accomplice in Crime The Shameful Shadows of Macabre July ’83 By Oswald B. Firth OMI, July 29, 2004 Director, Centre for Society and Religion Editor Social Justice How could a community of people, steeped in the traditional values of compassion and ‘ahimsa’, ever break loose into uncivilised behaviour? “We shall have to repent in… Read more »