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Crisis in Sri Lanka
1. Background
3. Civil society calls for action 4. Response by the International Community 5. Post-conflict Reconciliation and Rebuilding 1. Background The violent civil war in Sri Lanka over the past 25 years has killed more than 100,000 and caused enormous amounts of suffering to both Tamil and Sinhalese civilians. The intensification of violence since the start of 2009, leading up to the end of the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka resulted in a massive humanitarian crisis. By mid-May, the UN estimated that 7000 civilians, with more than 1000 of them children, died in the escalation of hostilities in 2009. As the death toll intensified in the days leading up to the official end of the conflict on 19 May 2009, UN officials condemned the “bloodbath” and repeatedly expressed grave concern over the “unacceptably high” civilian death toll. In addition, 50,000 civilians were trapped in combat zones. According to estimates by the UNHCR, as of 19 June 2009, 550,000 ethnic Tamils remained internally displaced and struggled to come to terms with the devastation of war.
The escalation of violence in 2008-2009 raised alarming concerns about the failure of the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to protect civilians from serious crimes under international law.
Reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch detail the LTTE forces preventing civilians from fleeing the conflict zone, putting civilians at unnecessary risk, displacing civilians and forcibly recruiting child soldiers. According to the UN, the LTTE has been using civilians as a buffer against government forces, forcibly recruiting civilians and holding men, women and children as hostages and using them as human shields.
The government of Sri Lanka used heavy artillery in densely populated areas, including in the “no-fire zones,” and targeted civilian infrastructure, resulting in indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Moreover, the government has denied humanitarian agencies and aid workers access to trapped civilians, exacerbating the suffering of the civilians. In addition, internally displaced Sri Lankans have been held without freedom of movement in government-run displacement camps; their fate continues to be murky, as the Sri Lanka government has made little effort in their rehabilitation and plans to reunite them with their families or return them to their homes.
The failure of the government of Sri Lanka to fulfill its primary responsibility to protect its populations from mass human rights violations and widespread killings prompted many advocates to consider the crisis in Sri Lanka an RtoP situation, especially given the alarmingly high death toll.
An open letter to the Security Council, sent by the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect on 11 April 2009, signed by Jan Egeland, Gareth Evans, Juan Méndez, Mohamed Sahnoun, Monica Serrano, Ramesh Thakur and Thomas G. Weiss, invoked the Responsibility to Protectnorm and called on the Security Council to “authorize ‘timely and decisive measures’ to prevent or halt mass atrocities”, among a series of recommended measures.
On 22 April 2009, James Traub, the director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, wrote in a op-ed for the Washington Post that, “the fighting threatens to produce exactly the kind of cataclysm that states vowed to prevent when they adopted "the responsibility to protect" at the 2005 U.N. World Summit,” and urged the United Nations to act. That same day, a joint letter by NGOs including Global Action to Prevent War, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, International Crisis Group, MEDACT, Minority Rights Group, Operation USA, Tearfund and World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy, urged UN action to “protect civilians and prevent mass atrocities”.
On 8 May 2009, The People’s Union for Civil Liberties, one of India’s largest human rights organizations, in a letter addressed to the United Nations, invoked the “Responsibility to Protect” and called for UN military intervention. They also urged for a referral by the UN Security Council for the International Criminal Court to investigate Sri Lanka’s alleged war crimes.
On 11 May 2009, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch Brad Adams sent a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urging the IMF to deny Sri Lanka’s request for a 1.9 billion emergency relief fund. Mr. Adams cited the LTTE’s recent actions as “inhumane to an extreme” and stated that the Sri Lankan government continues to disregard its obligations under international law to protect civilians, despite its repeated claims otherwise. Top shareholders of the IMF, including the United States, have also exerted pressure over the IMF to delay the loan and have been successful to date.
Also on 11 May 2009, International Crisis Group, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect signed a letter that was sent to Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso. The letter also encouraged Japan to use its leverage as Sri Lanka’s largest donor and a current UN Security Council member to play a more active role in alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka.
In addition, Amnesty International, in a letter addressed to the Security Council on 14 May 2009, reminded the Council that it had “repeatedly emphasized the need to protect civilians and confirmed the international community’s responsibility to protect,” as such; it could “no longer remain silent about the humanitarian and human crisis in Sri Lanka.” It urged the Council to convene to discuss the latest developments, gain access to carry out humanitarian work, ensure the protection of civilians in armed conflict, establish an inquiry commission on alleged human rights and international humanitarian law violations as well as to seek the Sri Lankan government’s cooperation to allow a UN humanitarian assessment mission to the conflict area.
On 19 May 2009, a joint statement by 165 NGOs all over the world, 122 of them from Malaysia, called for the protection displaced peoples, civilians and human rights in Sri Lanka. In addition, on 23 May 2009, International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), a Japanese-based NGO, expressed regret that the conflict in Sri Lanka was not solved through peaceful means and highlighted the vital need for an investigation into war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law committed by all parties in the conflict, calling in particular for a “independent investigation into the recent carnage.” IMADR also called for full access for international humanitarian agencies and urged to incorporate a political framework in the rebuilding process that would respect the rights of minorities.
Forum-Asia issued a statement on 27 May 2009, at the Human Rights Council’s Special Session on Sri Lanka, and underlined the critical need to address the issue of access for humanitarian agencies as well as the importance of an investigation to address the violations of human rights and international humanitarian law for accountability and “truth and reconciliation” in Sri Lanka.
UN officials, including the Secretary-General, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as a number of Member States, called on the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to make protecting civilians a priority and to take all necessary measures to halt the escalating humanitarian disaster. This, however, was to little effect, according to HRW, “the Sri Lankan government has responded to broad international concerns with indignation and denials instead of action to address the humanitarian crisis”.
The Human Rights Council (HRC) called for a special session on 26 May 2009 to discuss the human rights violations in Sri Lanka. A European-backed resolution was put forward, pushing for unfettered access to detained civilians and an internal investigation of alleged war crimes by both sides. However, a resolution proposed by Sri Lanka won the votes of the majority. The resolution congratulated the Sri Lankan government on its victory of the civil war and ignored human rights concerns, making no mention of the high civilian death toll or the fate of the hundreds and thousands of internally displaced people. This turn of events has been viewed as a “disgrace” and “deeply disappointing” by Voice Against Genocide and Human Rights Watch respectively; many have also questioned the purpose and legitimacy of the HRC in the wake of its failure with regards to Sri Lanka’s human rights violations. Despite Navanethem Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, assertions that investigating human rights abuses committed by the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers is needed for the country’s post conflict development process, the Human Rights Council’s resolution made no mention of the commissioning of an inquiry.
The United Nations also failed to obtain timely access to the civilians affected and displaced by the hostilities, despite appeals to the Sri Lankan government, humanitarian aid groups were denied access to the hundreds and thousands of displaced civilians weeks after the end of the war. Presently, humanitarian access to the displacement camps continued to be partially hindered.
On 22 May 2009, just three days after the official end of the civil war, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Sri Lanka. His mission sought to progress in three key areas: “immediate humanitarian relief reintegration” and “reconstruction” and an “equitable political solution” for the South Asian island which has been war-torn for a quarter of a century. The joint statement issued by Ban Ki-moon and the government of Sri Lanka reflected this focus, in which it, “agreed that addressing the aspirations and grievances of all communities and working towards a lasting political solution was fundamental to ensuring long-term socio-economic development” while at the same time addressing immediate humanitarian concerns. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly called for the Sri Lankan government to “honor its promises” and warned that if repatriation of refugees and reconciliation were not addressed, more violence would break out.
Following the Human Right Council’s dismal special session on the situation in Sri Lanka and the recent disbanding of the state-sponsored Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which only investigated 7 cases, none of which resulted in justice, calls for probes on Sri Lanka’s human rights violations have intensified. The Council of the European Union called for an independent inquiry. International Crisis Group also released a report on the failings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry entitled “Sri Lanka’s Judiciary: Politicised Courts, Compromised Rights.” Regional civil society organization – Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) and Lawyers Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), in a statement at the 11th session of the Human Rights Council, called for investigations into the violation of human rights.
Meanwhile, the civilians continue to suffer from the consequences of the war, many still held in displacement camps with their fate unknown. Access to these state-controlled camps by humanitarian groups and the UN remain difficult despite some improvements. As the statement of a group of concerned Tamils of Sri Lanka, forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission reflects, there continues to be grave concern that the needs of the 300,000 internally displaced people in Sri Lanka are not sufficiently met.
Conclusion
The focus on the Sri Lanka crisis has shifted from the responsibility to react to the responsibility to rebuild. The calls for inquiries into human rights violations have highlighted the need to end the culture of impunity and turn to reconciliation. As Ramesh Thakur, former commissioner of the ICISS Report, asserts, the “responsibility to reconstruct and rebuild, with international assistance, shows the way forward,” towards a “peaceful future for a united Sri Lanka”.
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