A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
(Full Story)
Search This Blog
Back to 500BC.
==========================
Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, July 22, 2017
Looking at Systemic Torture in Sri Lanka
The Diplomat’s Taylor Dibbert speaks with Frances Harrison of the International Truth and Justice Project.
Frances Harrison is the program coordinator of the International Truth
and Justice Project (ITJP) and author of a book on the final phase of
the Sri Lankan civil war. She discussed a new ITJP report with The Diplomat.
ITJP has recently released a new report. What are a few of the big takeaways?
By Taylor Dibbert-July 21, 2017
Tragically,
“white van” abductions, illegal detention, and torture continued
throughout 2016 and into 2017. One security force team abducts, another
interrogates and tortures and a third releases for a ransom. The
victims, who are Tamil, were detained in purpose-built cells and
interrogated in rooms specially equipped for torture. Senior officers
walked into torture chambers. [The Eelam People’s Democratic Party] EPDP
remains involved in securing releases for money; immigration fraud at
the airport [in Colombo] persists unchecked. The military and [Terrorism
Investigation Division] TID are still using Joseph Camp as a torture
site along with unknown sites; perpetrators are beginning to use
biometric fingerprinting machines that were only recently introduced in
Sri Lanka.
Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
What’s very shocking to me is that we are now seeing families where
several siblings have all been tortured in the post-war period. And
individuals who have been detained and repeatedly tortured on as many as
three or four separate times. They arrive in the United Kingdom and
promptly try to kill themselves – hardly the action of economic
migrants. Being an asylum seeker in Britain after enduring war and
torture is a terrible ordeal. I help run a small project for 30 recent
survivors from Sri Lanka, offering group trauma counselling in Tamil and
English classes and a hot spicy meal, and I can’t describe the
intensity of the suffering we see. Torture survivors are the first to
fall through the cracks of the welfare system.
Very few of the victims we meet now were hard core [Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam] LTTE cadres, who joined voluntarily and spent years with
the organisation being extensively trained. Instead we see forced or
child recruits or people with only a tenuous link to the LTTE often
through family members. We tend to make assumptions that the Sri Lankan
security forces would logically only persecute senior LTTE cadres who
might be deemed to pose a future security threat, but instead it’s now
clear that this is an ongoing process of crushing Tamils who demand
their democratic rights as Sri Lankan citizens. Indeed, asserting one’s
rights if one is Tamil, is interpreted by the security forces as an act
of defiance and equated to “restarting the LTTE.”
How long did it take to prepare the report?
The report is based on 24 statements from victims of torture that
occurred in 2016 and 2017, and reinforced by 33 statements from 2015
victims. Each statement took 3-4 days to record and obviously the work
has been ongoing over the last 30 months. We analysed the information
and wrote the report, asking our talented Tamil graphic designer to
visualize the torture methods in a way that was innovative.
In terms of policy-oriented recommendations – to address
torture, abduction, unlawful detention, sexual violence and impunity –
what are some positive actions Colombo could take in the next few months
to suggest it’s serious about meaningful reform?
I have divided the recommendations into how easy they would be, not
politically, but administratively. These are just a personal selection,
acknowledging that many others in Sri Lanka have made important
recommendations on specific initiatives that I won’t repeat:
Instantly possible:
- Show at peak hours (and on repeat) the Channel 4 “No Fire Zone” film in Sinhala on Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (state run TV).
- The President, Prime Minister and armed forces commanders go to Palali Air Base and, in front of hundreds of soldiers and on peak time state TV, issue in Sinhala their instructions to military and police not to commit sexual violence, showing they really mean it this time.
- The President and Prime Minister publish a version (redacted to protect victims not perpetrators) of the [UN Office of Internal Oversight Services] OIOS inquiry report in to the allegations of extensive child sexual exploitation by Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers from 2004-7 in Haiti and to announce how may Sri Lankan soldiers/officers were held criminally accountable rather than just demoted or early retired.
- Publish photos and names of all Sri Lankan service men and women going abroad henceforth as UN peacekeepers, so as to be transparent.
- The President and Prime Minister stop denying the allegations of war crimes and praising the “war heroes” acknowledging that their current rhetoric emboldens racists and deniers.
- The President and Prime Minister “own,” endorse and adopt the recommendations of the consultation task force report [pertaining to transitional justice mechanisms] that they commissioned.
- Order the 58th Division [of the Sri Lanka Army] to hand over the list of surrendees from May 18, 2009 [when the war ended] to the Mullaitivu court.
Require administrative action but no new legislation:
- Institute a vetting process for public officials and stop appointing alleged perpetrators to senior positions.
- Reply to the questions [the UN Committee Against Torture] UNCAT asked about Sisira Mendis’s alleged involvement in torture.
- Reconstitute the witness protection National Authority without alleged perpetrators.
- Enable witnesses abroad to testify through letters rogatory rather than requiring them to enter Sri Lankan embassies.
- Set up a credible independent investigative unit with international assistance, so as to be able to start holding perpetrators accountable.
- Decommission Joseph Camp.
- Establish an independent body to pay reparations to thousands of torture victims outside Sri Lanka, while protecting the victims and their families.
Do you expect that the Sri Lankan government will take any of the steps that you’ve suggested?
No.
What are the best ways for international actors to help Sri Lanka curtail systemic torture and related offenses?
Increased international pressure is urgently required on the human
rights issues. I have heard people in the UN argue that speaking out
about ongoing violations and impunity will only bring the Rajapaksas
back to power and that one cannot approach this government in the same
terms as the last. Here at the ITJP we are not interested in regime
change or supporting one government as opposed to another; we hold them
all to the same high standards, which they have committed to. I do
expect the UN to learn from its appalling past in Sri Lanka in 2009 and
to speak out clearly for the destroyed people I see still fleeing abroad
who have no voice. The failures of the international community in 2009
in Sri Lanka sparked the UN’s “Rights Up Front” movement, but it’s
tragically made absolutely no difference in Sri Lanka itself.
Independent experts like Felice Gaer and Ben Emmerson have been
outspoken about the violations though.
I can’t help recalling that at the height of the war in 2009 the
assumption of many in the international community was that if the LTTE
were “removed” as a political force then “the problem” would be solved. A
few years later, the assumption was that if the Rajapaksas were removed
then “the problem” would be solved. Personifying the problems and
pushing all the collective blame for systematic failures on to
individuals is obviously a flawed approach. This is about systemic and
institutional failure.
Many in the international community convinced themselves that Sri Lanka
in 2015 offered a once in a lifetime opportunity for historical change.
They’re now so invested in wanting the country to be a transitional
justice success story that they cannot readily admit it’s failing
rapidly and the transition was flimsy at best. A new and more
sophisticated international approach is urgently called for – one that I
hope prevents any more human beings being branded with a hot metal rod
to give them “Tiger stripes” until they pass out unconscious from the
pain.
This interview has been edited lightly.