UNHRC Cannot Rely On Sri Lanka To Prosecute Its Armed Forces – Part III

By Usha S Sri-Skanda Rajah –APRIL 18, 2018

Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah

As the search for justice for victims of the Tamil genocide continues.

– While the application of ‘universal jurisdiction’ by individual states to prosecute war criminals must be pursued rigorously, the way forward for member states of the UN Human Rights Council is to lobby the UN Security Council for an ICC referral or for the establishment of an international special criminal tribunal for Sri Lanka.

This is part 3 of a series of articles showing the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) cannot rely anymore on the Sri Lankan government to prosecute members of its armed forces and senior political leaders – those responsible for, “some of the worst crimes in the 21st century.” The way forward for member states of the UN Human Rights Council is to lobby the UN Security Council for an ICC referral.

While part 1 argues the case that prolonged reliance on Sri Lanka to prosecute its war criminals is unsustainable, Part 2 makes it more crystal clear that those prosecutions would not be forthcoming, by examining among other, the role played by Sri Lanka’s current president, the plethora of Sri Lanka’s lies, the phenomena of double talk, its sworn loyalty to its armed forces as well as its flawed ‘war on terror’ narrative in addition to the never ending triumphalism mentality, the volatile political situation in Sri Lanka, the probability that President Sirisena running for a second term in 2020, is likely to team up with Gotabaya Rajapaksa as his prime minister – the former defense secretary, alleged architect of the genocidal war and war time atrocities, presumably with the backing of China. (Since writing Part 1, Sirisena has voted against the ‘No Confidence Motion’ against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, he was initially expected to vote for it – the fact he chickened out was looked upon as a betrayal and a hammer blow to the Mahinda Rajapksa crowd). Albeit there’s no denying the current chaotic political scene in Sri Lanka only exacerbates the issue, supporting the contention that Sri Lanka cannot be relied upon to prosecute its armed forces. More catastrophic political developments in the cards as the presidential elections draws near in 2020 would only further impede the search for justice for the victims of the Tamil genocide…

Part 3 goes to the core commitments that Sri Lanka is supposed to deliver that needs fulfilling, shining a light on serious ongoing violations and exposing its inherent and open bias towards the security forces and the protection it offers them, which together reinforce the argument at the very heart of these series of articles – that the UNHRC cannot rely anymore on the Sri Lankan government to prosecute members of its armed forces and senior political leaders.

Scrutinizing Sri Lanka’s implementation of Resolutions 30/1 and 34/L1 and its rather spurious claims of compliance through the prism of some damning reports, among other, the report released by the Sri Lanka Monitoring and Accountability Panel (MAP), a must read, parts of which is discussed in part 1, it is clear, it didn’t need rocket science for member states to pick up on Sri Lanka’s ‘dithering’, ‘procrastination’ and ‘bad faith’ – brought home by some disturbing findings from the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) the Sri Lanka Campaign (SLC), Freedom from Torture. Aljazeera and UN mandate holders, among other.

Fact Checking Reveal Extent of Non-Compliance, Deceptions and Cunning:

Yet again Sri Lanka has failed to deliver on its transitional justice commitments; failed to take concrete action to prosecute perpetrators of ongoing violations including torture and sexual violence. And only by fact checking everyone of those commitments Sri Lanka signed up to, with the real situation on the ground, the extent of Sri Lanka’s non-compliance, deception, lies, its  dubious and cunning approach to accountability; its calculated indifference, indeed its attempts to escape from establishing a hybrid court – is revealed. The Mid-Term Report on Sri Lanka prepared by the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) together with its rebuttal to the statement made by Sri Lanka’s foreign minister to the UNHRC, says it all – with respect to the implementation of it commitments, Sri Lanka gets a failing grade. TGTE’s findings are an expose on Sri Lanka’s attempts to con its way out of the situation with all talk and no action.    

In Part 1, we drew attention to the 3rd Spot report, released by MAP, a panel of experts in the field “established to provide independent monitoring, advice, and recommendations on the progress of transitional justice in Sri Lanka.” The 34 page report, captioned: ‘How the International Community’s Passivity Has Enabled Further Mass Atrocities in Sri Lanka: the Case of Ongoing Illegal Detention, Torture, and Sexual Violence’, serves as a continuing indictment on Sri Lanka. Expressing a lack of confidence in Sri Lanka’s ability to address impunity, MAP urges the UNHRC, “to lobby the UN Security Council to refer the Sri Lanka situation to the International Criminal Court, as a statement of support to the victims and human-rights defenders seeking accountability in Sri Lanka.”

MAP’s Catalogue of Sri Lanka’s Serious Ongoing Violations:

MAP lists, “serious crimes, the Sri Lankan security forces continue to commit – including illegal detention, torture and sexual violence – with impunity,” catalogued by “credible observers”, crimes, which it attributes to, “seemingly, the failure of the international community to hold Sri Lanka to account for past crimes,” that has, it says, “encouraged the continuation of such violations.”

Map laid out its concerns citing many reports and statistics: for one the report filed by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary detention, which points to the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) “as one of the key enablers of arbitrary detention for over four decades.” Further, sharing both the findings of the Sri Lanka Campaign on surveillance and the stats provided by Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission on unlawful arrests and torture by police where, “in the first three quarters of 2017, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka received 5614 complaints, 1174 of them related to unlawful arrest and torture by police,” MAP surmises how the heavy handedness of the security services has had an impact on the community, leaving , “many Tamils fearing they might be abducted, arbitrarily detained, tortured, sexually abused or killed as security forces continue ‘surveillance, harassment and intimidation’.”  MAP believes and has always warned: “the right choices will help foster accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, while the wrong ones will not only waste an opportunity to deliver meaningful justice to victims, but also undermine stability for years to come.”

Sri Lanka’s Attempt Yet Again to Manipulate Casualty Figures:

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