Sri Lanka Has No Capacity To Hold Any Credible Investigation
M.A. Sumanthiran MP
I
count it a privilege and an honour to have been invited to address this assembly
this afternoon.
It
is said that Truth is the first casualty of war. I want to say today that Truth
is also the first step in reconciliation. It is in recognition of this principle
that after the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa, the process that
united the country was called the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.
In
Sri Lanka too, many Truths about the war were hidden and continue to remain
hidden. It is time for us in Sri Lanka to uncover the truth, face up to it, and
move forward towards reconciliation. The end of the war in May 2009 provided us
with a great opportunity for that. Unfortunately, triumphalism and narrow,
parochial self interest has prevailed for the last four years resulting in more
damage being done to the social fabric and the institutional safeguards in our
country than what they suffered even during the years of war. Violations of
human rights were rife, as can be expected, whilst the war raged. But sadly, the
end of the war did not turn things around. The government, without being
magnanimous in victory, continues to behave as though the State is still under
siege. The natural popularity that was gained for having brought the fighting to
an end is being used to further erode democratic values and to entrench a
family-rule. For the people too the line between expressing gratitude and
permitting an authoritarian take-over remained thin, with the result, the only
constitutional safe-guard protecting the independence of democratic institutions
was dismantled within six months of the new Parliament convening in 2010.
The 18th amendment to
the Constitution not only abolished the Constitutional Council responsible for
appointment to independent offices and institutions, but also removed the two
term limit on the very powerful Executive Presidency.
The
recent impeachment of the Chief
Justice through a process that was declared to be unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court demonstrates the extent to which rule of law has broken down
in Sri Lanka. The apparent disregard to democratic ideals and to the values and
principles of the Commonwealth as regards Latimar House principles, which Sri
Lanka is bound by, clearly demonstrates the authoritarian and dictatorial nature
of the present regime. The purported appointment of the
advisor to the government as the Chief Justice, again lays bare the
government’s mindset. The fact that the Chief Justice was impeached hot on the
heels of several devolution-friendly determinations that angered the government,
again demonstrates its lack of sincerity in actually implementing the 13th
amendment to the Constitution, let alone going beyond it to achieve
meaningful devolution to which the government paid lip service until the
independence day speech of the President earlier this month.
The
government continued with the state of emergency for over two years after the
end of the war, and allowed it to lapse only in order to face up to the UN Human Rights
Council sessions in Setember 2011. However, just a day before the
state of emergency lapsed, a set of new regulations was introduced under the
draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. The most obnoxious of these is the
regulation that enables the security establishment to incacerate any person
under the guise of ‘rehabilitation’ without even producing him/her before a
court of law, on the pretext that such person had ‘surrendered’. Many are being
so incarcerated now: about 40 from Jaffna, another dozen or so from Trincomalee
and a few more from Batticaloa. Four University students who were also among
those arrested in Jaffna have been released. The manner in which the President
ordered the release of two of them while he was visiting Jaffna demonstrates the
height of arbitrariness of these arrests and detentions and removes any doubt as
to the illegality of the continuing detention of the others. In addition, there
are close to a thousand others who continue to be detained under the PTA, some
for longer than 15 years, without proper charges or trial. One glaring example
is that of an Irish national who was arrested in 2007. The state claimed that he
was an international arms smuggler and kept getting more and more time before
the Supreme Court where he had challeged his arrest and detention. After five
long years, they indicted him for failure to give information to the Police, the
most innocuous of offences under the PTA. He pleaded guilty on legal advice,
since he had spent longer than the maximum sentence for this offense and was
sentenced to a token term of one month. But on the day of his release, just a
few days ago, on the 12th of February, he was remanded again on the application
of the State which claimed that they plan to indict him again for another
offence!
The
Human Rights situation in the North and the East, and indeed in all parts of the
country continues to deteriorate. Not holding anyone accountable for the grave
crimes committed during the last stages of the war, has its heavy price. Similar
incidents are bound to recur and that is what is happening, particularly in the
North and East of the country at present. Recently 109 very young Tamil girls
were said to have been recruited to the Army from the Districts of Kilinochchi
and Mullaitivu. No formal procedures were followed and some of them have managed
to escape and return home. 16 others were said to have suddenly gone down with
‘mass hysteria’ and admitted to the Kilinochchi hospital one day and no one was
allowed to meet them. All this raises grave suspicions as to the actual status
of these girls in the Army. My colleague, Hon. Shritharanraised
the matter in Parliament and he was promptly subjected to a Criminal
Investigation Department inquiry in breach of Parliamentary privilege. Since he
raised the question of privilege, now the Terrorist Investigation Division has
raided his office in Kilinochchi, claims to have recovered some explosives and
astonishingly, condoms and pornographic material! They have also arrested two of
his staff and are holding them under the PTA. Handbills were distributed in
Kilinochchi with pictures of the alleged pornography saying ‘This is your MP who
speaks about young women being abused by the army’. He was also summoned to the
TID office and subjected to a three hour inquiry just last week. Human Rights
Watch has released a
141 page report two days ago on the sexual abuse of Tamil detainees.
The 150,000 strong army presence in the Northern Province – one soldier to every
five civilians – says more of what goes on in the open in the Tamil areas. This
sense of impunity has been brought about solely due to the fact that no one has
had to answer yet for the serious allegations of war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed during the last stages of the war. The UN Panel of Experts
recommended an independent investigation into this with international
supervision.
The
TNA, as the elected representatives of the Tamil people, welcomed the Panel of
Experts’ finding that “credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a
wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and
international human rights law were committed both by the Government of Sri
Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against
humanity. Indeed, 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.” The official position of the TNA is that the truth must be
ascertained through an independent international investigation, which should
also inquire into the on-going acts of persecution against the Tamil People even
four years after the end of the war. Sadly, locally, the country has no capacity
to hold any credible investigation, particularly now, with the breakdown of the
independence of the judiciary. The government has also now plainly demonstrated
what they are in fact capable of. A military tribunal established to inquire
into these violations has concluded – hold your breath – that no violations
occurred, and worse, that no person has disappeared in Sri Lanka! The LLRC itself
has reported that from persons who braved to come and give evidence before it
alone, over 3,000 had disappeared and out of this 1018 had disappeared after
surrendering to the security forces at the end of the war.
The
government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) too
recommended that theChannel
4 video footage that was first released should be investigated to
ascertain their authenticity. Since then there have been two more releases of
such footage. The government of Sri Lanka has challenged the authenticity of
this footage as well. This too then must be subject to thorough investigation.
Both the charges and the counter-charges that have been made are too serious to
be allowed to remain without inquiry.
At
the begining of this conference Peter Kellner gave us a sobering thought. I was
more encouraged when Suren called it wise words. Option 1 as outlined by him
must be pursued before the other options are resorted to. It is true that time
is short, but it is important to get the GOSL to deliver.
The
TNA today is calling upon the government of Sri Lanka to cooperate with any
UNHRC resolution which seeks the implementation of the LLRC recommendations and
seeks credible measures to ascertain the Truths that have been hidden.
Contesting a reasonable resolution and having it voted on will only result in
Sri Lanka losing the vote and facing international embarrassment.
Sri
Lanka must now work with the United Nations to ascertain the Truth. It is the
Truth that will lead to reconciliation and enable the Tamil People, together
with all the Peoples in Sri Lanka to live with equality, dignity and
self-respect.
* The
speech made by MA Sumanthiran MP at the GTF 3rd
Anniversary Conference London.
