Sri Lanka’s Victims Demand and Deserve Credible Justice
Image courtesy IRIN
“The regime has changed, but the system remains the same; how can we expect justice from them?,” asked a Tamil nun who survived the brutal conflict between the Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tigers in Vavuniya district in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.
Her sentiments echo a growing sense of skepticism shared by many in the country’s north and east in the willingness and ability of the Sri Lankan State to deliver justice and accountability for victims of the conflict and their families.
Interviews with local lawyers, activists, victims and victims’ families during my recent visit to the north and east reinforced the importance of ensuring a credible transitional justice process that will provide a genuine remedy to victims and survivors, and in so doing restore public confidence in the State.
Achieving this credibility requires, among other things, the participation of a majority of foreign judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators in any proposed special tribunal created to address alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations committed by all sides during the conflict.
Since the new government came to power a little over a year ago, Sri Lanka has taken some important and welcome steps towards national reconciliation. Particularly, victims’ hopes for justice were bolstered by the government’s apparent acceptance of the September 2015 report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documenting alleged serious human rights violations and abuses committed by all sides to the conflict. The Sri Lankan government even co-sponsored the subsequent Human Rights Council resolution, which affirmed the importance of the participation of foreign judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators to ensure the credibility of a “judicial mechanism” as part of the justice and accountability process.
But the government has yet to demonstrate any concrete initiatives towards fulfilling this promise of accountability. Recent statements emanating from various quarters of the government have fed mistrust among victims in the war-affected north and east. President Sirisena’s January 2016 BBC interview, in which he emphatically rejected the possibility of foreign participation in a proposed accountability mechanism, alarmed many. Equally troubling were his comments expressing full confidence in the existing justice system and questioning the UN report’s allegations of war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Army. Continue Reading →
