Sri Lanka’s Universal Periodic Review: War Crimes must take Centre Stage

Guest Column by Usha S Sri-Skanda-Rajah
The issue that must take centre stage at Sri Lanka’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) scheduled for 1st November 2012 should be the question of Sri Lanka’s accountability for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, bearing in mind the period under review is from 2008 to 2012, covering the critical period before, during and after the war in Sri Lanka.

The major players involved in Sri Lanka’s review process must be ready to meet the issue head on.

In the light of Sri Lanka’s pathetic ‘National Report’ submitted for the UPR, it is imperative that Sri Lanka’s UPR includes a serious debate on the question of War Crimes that took place in Sri Lanka in the set period under review. This notwithstanding the resolution passed at the 19th session now proven with hindsight to be woefully inadequate in addressing the issue of accountability for War Crimes, for nowhere in the ‘National Report’ has Sri Lanka come up with a substantial and precise action plan to address the issue of accountability or the establishment of a credible domestic mechanism to investigate senior military and political leaders for War Crimes.

The ‘National Report’ reads like fiction and deserves to be consigned to fiction and not for consideration at the UPR, being definitely at odds with submissions made by members of the Civil Society to the UPR (both the ‘National Report’ and Civil Society submissions can be read at the OHCHR website: http://www.ohchr.org ) and other recent reports in the public domain for example the situation report released by the Commission for Peace and Justice of the Diocese of Jaffna (CJPDJ, not to mention, the letter Bishop Rayappu Joseph wrote recently to Sri Lankan President Rajapakse, raising serious concerns about the ground situation in the North and East of Sri Lanka.

The UN Panel of Experts report hasn’t been yet seriously addressed at the UN to give credence to the serious indictment contained in it that Sri Lankan government shelling caused more than 40,000 civilian deaths: The UN Panel in looking at “accountability” found "credible allegations", they said “if proven, indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE,” and that “as many as 40,000 civilians may have been killed in the final months of the civil war, most as a result of government shelling,” concluding that what took place was "a very different version of the final stages of the war than that maintained  to this day by the Government of Sri Lanka," (Sri Lanka falsely claiming at the outset it pursued a policy of zero civilian casualty) and that “the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during both war and peace.”

Credible allegations such as these provide a sound basis for an independent investigation; that which prompted US Ambassador Patricia Butenis to send a secret diplomatic cable to the US State Department that stated “the responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa, his brothers and General Fonseka,” as leaked by Wiki Leaks.                                 Full Story>>>>