An Open Letter To The High Commissioner For Human Rights – Part II

By Brian Senewiratne –MARCH 30, 2019

Dr. Brian Senewiratne

I will now set out what I think about the situation, mainly for the benefit of the many countries that spoke who may not have a clue of what is going on in Sri Lanka.

My assessment

I will set out some of the more serious problems facing the Tamil people in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

A military/police state in the North and East: The absolute need for a civilian administration

The Tamil North and East of Sri Lanka are not under the Sri Lankan government but under the Sri Lankan (Sinhalese) military (99% Sinhalese) and the police (95% Sinhalese). It is a military/police state where the military and police can do what they want with no accountability.

This has now gone in for 10 years and will go on for the foreseeable future if there is no international pressure on the Sri Lankan government. This will have to be generated by those outside Sri Lanka.

It is a violation of the Sri Lankan Constitution since there is no provision for setting up a military/police state in a part of the island. This will have to be challenged by constitutional experts outside Sri Lanka.

It is a situation that the Sri Lankan government can correct but will not do so because the Sinhalese-dominated government could not care less what happens to the Tamils, especially in the North and East. The pressure to deal with this critical human rights crisis will have to come from outside Sri Lanka. What does the key international organisation, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) do? Give the Sri Lankan government another two years, to continue to do what it has done for the past decade. Is that acceptable?

It is clearly not  acceptable. On 17 March 2019 tens of thousands of Tamils in the northern city of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, held a massive protest rally against attempts to give any extension of time to Sri Lanka for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity including sexual assault and rape committed by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. Demonstrators urged UNHRC to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and appoint a Special Rapporteur for the war affected. I add my protest.

Demilitarisation of the Tamil North and East

There is a massive military presence in the North and East of Sri Lanka. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies February 2019 report, ‘The Military Balance’, the Sri Lankan military has 255,000 active members. This is larger than those in the United Kingdom (146,390), France (203,910) or Saudi Arabia( 227,000).

The Adayaalam Centre for policy research is a think-tank based in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and PEARL (People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka) is a Tamil advocacy group based in Washington. They published a paper  titled ‘Normalising the Abnormal. Militarisation of Mullaitivu’   that the ratio of military to civilians in Mullaitivu is 1:2. There is no place in the world which is so highly militarised.

The military and police are responsible for all the serious violations of human rights of the Tamils people in the area. They  will simply wither away since they have no means of survival – no land to cultivate, no sea to fish, no jobs and unable to set up a business since all of these have been taken over by the Armed Forces.

If the Tamil people wither away, it is genocide.

The militant Tamil Tigers have been crushed. The question is the justification for such a massive military presence. Who is the enemy? Since there is no justification, the military must be withdrawn and the police recruited from the local Tamil population. It will not happen without international pressure.

Military equipment

As is well known, the Sri Lankan military were given (mainly from China) or bought, more than a dozen KFir jet bombers, scores of multi-barrel rocket launchers, helicopter gunships, thousands of assault rifles, some of which can be called ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The armed conflict is over. The question is where these weapons are being stored by the Armed Forces and why.

It is time that aid-givers to Sri Lanka insisted that Sri Lanka sold these weapons. Until this is done, there would be no financial aid to Sri Lanka.

The military getting involved in non-military activity

The Armed Forces have gone into non-military commercial activity. They are engaged in large scale property development, construction projects and business ventures such as travel agencies, holiday resorts, restaurants and innumerable cafes in the North and East. Some of these holiday resorts have been published by the British Tamils Forum (see below).

The military has no place in business activity. This non-military activity is having a serious impact on civilian life and must be stopped.  This will not happen without international pressure on the Sri Lankan government.

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