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Sri Lanka Seeks to Fight Off War Crimes Inquiry Facing a War Crimes Inquiry, Sri Lanka Continues to Vex U.N.
(about 5 hours later)
GENEVA — Sri Lanka accused Navi Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief, of bias and inaccuracy on Wednesday as it sought to fight off moves in the Human Rights Council to back her recommendation for an international investigation into possible war crimes at the end of the country’s 26-year civil war. UNITED NATIONS — What to do with Sri Lanka? The island nation, triumphant after nearly three decades of war against ethnic separatists, has vexed the United Nations.
After weeks of intensive lobbying by both sides in Geneva and in capitals around the world, the council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a United States-sponsored resolution that takes up Ms. Pillay’s recommendation and calls on her agency to conduct “a comprehensive investigation” into possible war crimes in 2009 “with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring accountability.” Five years after the war’s brutal ending, the world body has been unable to address grave human rights violations committed by the warring parties, making Sri Lanka something of an object lesson in the difficulties of pursuing accountability.
Nearly five years after the end of the war, in which government forces battled the Tamil Tigers — a notoriously brutal insurgent group — the Sri Lankan government has shown little appetite for any robust investigation into allegations of crimes including executions, rape and torture. A recent Australian inquiry found evidence that crimes were committed by both sides, but the vast majority by the Sri Lankan military. The United Nations’ own conduct during the war led to a change in doctrine: The secretary general late last year ordered United Nations officials not to stay silent in the face of rights violations, as they had in Sri Lanka in 2009.
Citing concerns over allegations of continuing abuses, including arrests of rights activists and attacks on religious minorities, the resolution also requires the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor and report on human rights in Sri Lanka. Special envoys were appointed, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Sri Lanka to seek accountability; both gestures were rebuffed. Now comes the sharpest measure yet: The United Nations Human Rights Council is due to vote Thursday morning in Geneva on whether to order an independent international investigation into possible war crimes, including executions, rape and torture.
The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has shrugged off the significance of the vote, saying blithely this week: “I don’t care if we win or lose in Geneva, I don’t give a pittance.” Referring to Sri Lankans, he added, “I know the people here will ensure our victory.” The draft resolution calls for the United Nations human rights office to monitor Sri Lanka and “undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations of human rights and related crimes by both parties.”
Arrests of prominent human rights activists in the past week and a series of demonstrations outside the United States Embassy in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, attested to a more hostile government reaction. “They are really angry that people are putting together documents and evidence that support the call for accountability,” Alan Keenan, a London-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, said in an interview. The high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, supports an investigation. She has said Sri Lanka’s own inquiries have “consistently failed to establish the truth and achieve justice.”
After three years of mounting international pressure for a credible investigation into events that a previous United Nations panel has said killed up to 40,000 civilians, international human rights activists see Thursday’s vote as a test of the council’s credibility. The vote by the 47-member council will most likely be close. Iran and Zimbabwe praised Sri Lanka’s postwar reconciliation efforts, while China commended its “promotion and protection of human rights.” The United States, which co-sponsored the resolution, pointed to continued harassment of journalists and members of civil society, “including reprisals against those who meet with visiting diplomats and U.N. officials.” India, whose vote will be closely watched, chose not to address the council on Wednesday.
Opening Wednesday’s debate, Ms. Pillay, the high commissioner, cited the magnitude and gravity of the abuses and said that while Sri Lanka had established a number of investigations to look into the allegations, “none have had the independence to be effective or inspire confidence among victims and witnesses.” A defeat of the resolution would be “devastating,” said Julie de Rivero, the Geneva-based advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “It would really call into question the council’s effectiveness.”
Pitching for support from governments that resent the council’s investigating of their own human rights records, Sri Lanka’s ambassador in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha, said Ms. Pillay’s call for an independent investigation exceeded her mandate and “reflects the preconceived and politicized agenda which has been relentlessly pursued with regards to Sri Lanka.” The effect of the vote on the ground remains unclear — the government is unlikely to cooperate with monitors. President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka made his displeasure clear this week while campaigning for provincial elections that are due to be held this weekend. “I don’t care if we win or lose in Geneva,” he said. “I don’t give a pittance. I know the people here will ensure our victory.”
Mr. Aryasinha also cited “credible evidence” that overseas supporters of the Tamil Tigers had resumed activities, noting the recent discovery of an arms cache, and a shooting in northern Sri Lanka. Indeed, the government enjoys enormous public support among the majority ethnic Sinhalese for its May 2009 military victory against the rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Mr. Rajapaksa is likely to use any international investigation to his advantage.
M. A. Sumanthiran, a senior human rights lawyer and an ethnic Tamil who is a member of the Sri Lankan Parliament, said, “This is obviously a ‘false flag’ operation by the government,” which is trying to convince the world that the Tamil Tigers are regrouping. Analysts say a recent security crackdown by the military in northern Sri Lanka only reinforces the case for an independent investigation. One reason the United Nations has found it difficult to bring about accountability, even long after the end of a gruesome war, is that the rebels were members of a widely despised, brutal insurgency that was deemed a terrorist organization by many countries in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11. The Sri Lankan government deftly leveraged international support to crush the rebels.
But the crackdown has also stoked fears of harsh reprisals if the council in Geneva adopts the resolution. “We are worried the army might go berserk once the decision is made in Geneva,” said C. V. Wigneswaran, a Tamil and chief minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. “We have witnessed this before.” The difficulty equally reflects political pressures that have nothing to do with Sri Lanka. India, for instance, has a large and influential ethnic Tamil population, and its leaders can hardly afford to alienate them ahead of India’s parliamentary elections, due to start next month. Nor can it ignore Sri Lanka’s ever-growing ties with China.
Council-watchers in Geneva predict that the resolution will prevail, but that the vote will be close. The council’s members include Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela, all hostile to country-specific interventions. The war in Sri Lanka has roiled the United Nations. It had a large presence in the country during the last few months of the war, when up to 40,000 people are believed to have been killed, but was notably silent about the scale of killings. In an internal review, the United Nations described its silence as “a grave failure,” taking to task officials who “did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility.”
Defeat “would be devastating,” said Julie de Rivero, the Geneva-based advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “It would really call into question the council’s effectiveness.” That internal review led to a stark shift in policy, called “rights up front.” United Nations officials in the field are now under orders to report rights violations, and senior officials here are to engage in what Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson called “quiet diplomacy” or, if necessary, raise the violations with the Security Council.
The case for an international investigation has been strengthened by a slew of reports in recent weeks, adding to the already substantial volume of witness statements, photographs and video compiled by campaigners for an inquiry. The Security Council also did not pay close attention to rights abuses in a conflict that sought to stamp out the Tamil Tigers. “It was clear member states didn’t want to be told,” said Ian Martin, a former senior United Nations official.
The latest report, issued last week by Yasmin Sooka, a prominent South African human rights lawyer, details the cases of 40 Sri Lankans accused of supporting the Tamil Tigers who were reportedly abducted, tortured and sexually abused by members of the security forces, mostly in 2013 and 2014. He added that there was slim chance of punishing perpetrators now, without the government’s cooperation. “It’s one step further to a definitive account,” he said. “Truth is, there’s not going to be accountability.”
Their treatment established a case of crimes against humanity committed by security forces in a “coordinated, systematic plan approved by the highest levels of government,” Ms. Sooka’s report states. Ms. Pillay, in a report published in late February, pointed to abiding problems, including “continued militarization and compulsory land acquisition,” along with “shrinking space for civil society and the media, rising religious intolerance and the undermining of independent institutions, including the judiciary.” Mr. Rajapaksa sacked the country’s chief justice in January of last year.
“The evidence presented in this report gives the lie to the Sri Lankan government’s propaganda that it is reconciling with its former enemies,” Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu of South Africa wrote in a foreword to the report. Previous investigations have found that tens of thousands were killed in the final months of the war and that hospitals were bombed, in violation of international law. The latest international report, issued last week by a South African human rights lawyer, documented 40 cases in which suspected Tamil Tigers supporters were abducted, tortured and sexually abused by members of the Sri Lankan military.
To break the cycle of revenge, “the international community must intervene,” he said. “It is imperative to pierce the skein of impunity that surrounds Sri Lanka — an island where the war is clearly not yet over.” Mr. Rajapaksa’s administration has consistently denounced international human rights inquiries as a breach of the country’s sovereignty and an unfair targeting of his country. In the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, Buddhist monks and Hindu priests held all-night prayers on Monday, while on Wednesday about 2,000 pro-government Muslim protesters marched to the United States Embassy.
In the days leading up to the Geneva vote, Sri Lanka’s actions have drawn new outside scrutiny. It briefly detained two human rights advocates for questioning last week. Over the weekend, the police rounded up 300 Tamil youths for questioning in the still heavily militarized Jaffna peninsula in the country’s north. Maj. Gen. Udaya Perera, a northern area commander, said the heightened security checks were a “precaution” as the police stepped up the search for a rebel operative.
The chief minister from Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, C. V. Wigneswaran, an ethnic Tamil, has said he fears that the resolution, if passed, could spark a fiercer military crackdown. “We are worried the army might go berserk once the decision is made in Geneva,” he said.
A former Sri Lankan diplomat, Dayan Jayatilleka, described the country’s predicament as being caught between the United Nations campaign for accountability and Indian political imperatives.
Mr. Jayatilleka wrote in an opinion article for The Colombo Telegraph that “the Rajapaksa administration will owe a significant slice of its election victory this time around to the ill-targeted Geneva resolution.”