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
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Continuing Torture & Sexual Violence In Sri Lanka
President
Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe claim that since they took
over Government from the Rajapaksas in 2015, the situation in Sri Lanka
has changed for the better.
A Report by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) released on 14 July 2017, “Unstopped 2016/17 Torture in Sri Lanka” has a different view.
I have not written this Report. I have only condensed a 89-page document to something that is shorter. If there is a problem with what has been written, contact ITJP, not me.
I will only set out the ground realities that have not been dealt with in the ITJP report since it is of crucial importance.
A Military/Police area
The
Tamil North and East of Sri Lanka are under the military and police
(99% and 95% Sinhalese). who can do what they want to anyone with no
accountability. This includes torture, rape, abduction, interrogation,
‘disappearances’ or anything else. It is a military/police area. With
more than 200,000 Armed Forces in the area – it is highly militarised.
The ratio of civilians to ‘Security Force’ personnel is about 5 to 1 – a
situation that does not exist in any other country. The Sri Lankan
government has not given a valid reason as to why such a high
militarisation in an area where there is no longer an armed conflict.
The legal system has almost collapsed so that it is an exercise in
futility for victims of human rights violations to expect justice in
courts. None of this has changed with the change in Government in 2015,
nor is it likely to change anytime soon, if ever.
Unstopped: 2016/17 Torture in Sri Lanka
International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP)
ITJP
is administered by the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa
under its director, transitional justice expert, Yasmin Sooka.
The ITJP team of investigators and prosecutors
The
ITJP team is made up of seven international investigators from a
diverse range of countries, including former prosecutors and
investigators from the Ad Hoc Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
and Rwanda (ICTR), lawyers who have worked for the South African Truth
and Reconciliation Commission, the Timor-Leste Commission, the United
Nations, the Special Court of Sierra Leone and the International
Criminal Court who collectively have decades of experience in
investigation of sexual violence and torture, and in many instances
firsthand knowledge of investigations relating to Sri Lanka.
The investigation
The
Report is based on sworn testimony from 24 victims of torture who have
fled abroad to Europe, mainly the UK. About 3-4 days were spent with
every witness with a trusted interpreter in a safe place. The statements
taken were translated and read back to the victim in Tamil before it
was signed. Statements were also supported by medico-legal reports when
possible, psychological reports and documents from ICRC, Migration
reports, Courts, the Sri Lankan Human Rights Council, scar photographs and media reports where applicable.
The Foreword
I will quote a few sentences from the Foreword written by Yasmin Sooka.
“The
conflict has not ended for many Tamils in Sri Lanka and is still being
perpetrated through unlawful abductions, detention and torture.
Witnesses describe being tortured and raped by the security forces, some
as recently as 2017.
What
is shocking is the high number of victims we now see who have been
tortured not once but on multiple occasions – in one case as many as
five times. Sadly, this is no longer out of the ordinary.
Even
more disturbing is the number of torture victims whose very close
family members have also been tortured on separate occasions. This has
huge implications for any credible future rehabilitation and for
individual recovery which requires family support. The revictimisation
through the deliberate targeting of the grown-up children of former LTTE
cadres, indicates a high level of paranoia and persecution that is
utterly at odds with the Sri Lankan Government’s rhetoric of
reconciliation. It will also deepen intergenerational trauma and foster
new conflicts.
The
suicide attempts were so frequent that we had to start a psychosocial
trauma project in London to keep witnesses alive, restoring a sense of
group identity and hope for their future. Their journey abroad is not
about bettering their lives – it’s about staying alive. Even that is a
struggle.
This
report establishes that in 2016/17 both the military and police in Sri
Lanka continue to abduct, unlawfully detain, torture and rape Tamils.
The
violations remain systematic and officially sanctioned by command
structures within the security forces. Victims describe senior officers
coming into their torture chamber. A standard operating procedure
continues, involving three security force teams – one abducting, one
interrogating and another releasing for money. Once the victim has fled,
their family remains under surveillance by the intelligence services in
order to keep them quiet.
Corruption
Corruption
is rampant. All the victims are eventually released on payment of money
by their families. Security officials actively solicit the ransoms when
the families are slow to respond to the abduction.