Darusman, LLRC, Petrie Conundrum And The Trial By Media
By Charitha Ratwatte -December 11, 2012
Charitha Ratwatte
To do or not to do – is that the question?
A conundrum is a confusing problem or a question that is very difficult to solve. Sri Lanka, in the view of some analysts, faces a conundrum in relation to three reports concerning the situation of the end of the civil war in May 2009.
The first such document is entitled the Report of the Secretary General Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. This was chaired by Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian, and is commonly referred to as the Darusman Report. The Darusman Report was presented to the Secretary General of the United Nations in March 2011. The second report is the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) appointed by the Government of Sri Lanka. This report was issued in December 2011. The third report is one issued by an Internal Review Panel appointed by the UN Secretary General as recommended by the Darusman Commission to examine the UN’s actions during the final months of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009 and its aftermath. This Internal Review Panel was chaired byCharles Petrie a retired senior UN diplomat and presented to the Secretary General in November 2012. It is referred to as the Petrie Report.
The Darusman Report
The Darusman panel was appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations to advise him on the issue of accountability with regard to any alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the final stages of the civil law. The panel states that its report revealed ‘a very different version of the final stages of the war than that maintained to this day by the Government’.
The panel found ‘credible allegations’ which, if proven, indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE. The conclusion of the panel was ‘the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to prevent individual dignity during both peace and war’.
The panel found that as many as 40,000 civilians may have been killed in the final months of the civil war, most as a result of indiscriminate shelling by the Sri Lankan military. The panel also found ‘credible allegations ‘ that the Sri Lanka military killed civilians through widespread shelling, shelled hospitals and humanitarian objects, denied humanitarian assistance, violated the human rights of civilians and combatants and it violated the human rights of those outside the conflict zone such those of the members of the media.
Regarding the Tamil Tigers the panel found ‘credible allegations’ that they used civilians as a human buffer, killed civilians attempting to escape Tiger control, used military equipment in the proximity of civilians, forcibly recruited children, used forced labour and killed civilians using suicide attacks. The panel called on the UN Secretary General to conduct an independent international investigation into the alleged violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law committed by both sides.
The background to the Darusman Report was that immediately following the end of the civil war in May 2009 the Secretary General of the UN visited Sri Lanka and the President and the Secretary General issued a joint statement in which the Sri Lanka government agreed to take measures on accountability of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. As months of inaction by the Government stretched out, pressure grew for an international inquiry and the Secretary General appointed a three-member panel of experts in June 2010 to advise him on accountability issues relating to alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the final stages of the civil war.
The Sri Lanka Government reacted angrily to the panel being appointed, calling it ‘an unwarranted and unnecessary interference with a sovereign nation’. The Government also stated that the panel would not be allowed to enter Sri Lanka. Predictably the panel’s appointment was welcomed by the USA and the EU and criticised by Russia and China.
After the panel handed over a copy of their report to the UN’s Secretary General, a copy was given to the Government of Sri Lanka. The Government rejected the report as ‘fundamentally flawed’ and ‘patently biased’.
