Salil Shetty: Commonwealth should stand up for human rights

By Salil Shetty Thursday Nov 3, 2011

EXPAND

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, left, shakes hands with Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka's commitment to human rights is troubling, writes Amnesty International. Photo / AP

A government accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and numerous human rights violations is set to take control of an organisation of governments representing more than 2 billion people around the world.

Sri Lanka is to pick up the baton from Australia as the next head of the Commonwealth from 2013 to 2015. And most of the governments that make up the 54-member union appear content to let it happen.

They appear content to ignore the Sri Lankan government's record in the closing days of its long war with the Tamil Tigers, and the long list of human rights abuses committed by both sides compiled by Amnesty International and other organisations since hostilities ended. And they appear content to remain quiet as calls for an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides grow louder.

More than 300,000 people were trapped by the fighting in the final weeks of the war. Some were herded into government declared "safe zones", only to be deprived of adequate food, water and medical care and systematically bombarded by the army's heavy artillery.

Others were used by the Tigers as human shields or watched helplessly as their children were forced to join the rebel army. Those caught trying to flee were shot. By the end, more than 10,000 of them were dead.

Emerging accounts of atrocities were so severe that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon commissioned a panel of experts to advise him on the best way to ensure those responsible for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity were brought to justice.