By Dharisha Bastians
The Government yesterday set the stage for a domestic inquiry into alleged civilian deaths and violations of humanitarian law during the final stages of the war, appointing three international war crimes prosecutors to advise the Presidential Commission tasked with the probe.
The Presidential directive launching the inquiry comes just weeks after a UN investigation into rights abuses during the last seven years of the Sri Lankan war got off the ground in Geneva.
Successive Resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva have called upon the Sri Lankan Government to launch a credible, independent investigation at the domestic level into allegations of major rights violations during the last phase of its war against the LTTE.
The Commission of Inquiry has been launched by Presidential Proclamation, notified in a Gazette dated 15 July 2014, that broadens the scope of the Presidential Commission to investigate disappearances, headed by a former High Court Judge.
“I am of the opinion that it is expedient that the said Commission of Inquiry should have the benefit of the advice of distinguished international experts, whose internationally-recognised expertise and experience encompasses legal and other relevant dimensions,” President Rajapaksa said in his proclamation.
The advisory group appointed by President Rajapaksa, mirrors the panel picked by UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay, who also appointed three independent experts last month to oversee the Sri Lanka probe staff drawn from her Office will conduct.
Sir Desmond Lorenz de Silva, QC, a prominent British lawyer and former United Nations Chief War Crimes and Prosecutor in Sierra Leone, Geoffrey Nice QC, a former Deputy Prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia who served at the trial of Slobodan Milošević and American Chief Prosecutor for the Court of Sierra Leone Prof. David Crane who indicted, among others, the then-President of Liberia Charles Taylor, have been appointed as international advisors to the Commission.
“I may appoint other experts as may be required from time to time to advise the Chairman and members of the Commission of Inquiry at their request,” the Proclamation said.
The three-member Commission, comprising Maxwell Parakrama Paranagama (Chairman), Suranjana Vidyaratne and Mano Ramanathan, was appointed in August 2013 and has been given the authority to conduct inquiries and investigations into complaints of missing persons. Their mandate has already been extended by six months to 12 August 2014.
Paranagama, a former High Court Judge, told the Daily FT that he was studying the broader mandate, having been notified only on Wednesday. “We know that the Commission will now be required to look into civilian deaths that occurred in 2009,” Paranagama said.
Government officials are using careful phrasing to announce the move, saying the International Panel of Experts has been appointed to “advise the Missing Persons Commission”.
But the extended mandate of the Missing People’s Commission now includes inquiring into and reporting on matters under Paragraph 4:359 of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report, a section that deals specifically with the deaths and injuries caused to civilians in exchanges of fire within the military designated No Fire Zones, in the last days of the fighting in 2009.
Under its new mandate, as published in the Gazette Notification, the three-member Disappearances Commission will be required to inquire into the facts and circumstances that led to the loss of civilian life during the war that ended on 19 May 2009.
The Commissioners will also look into the “adherence to or neglect of the principles of distinction, military necessity and proportionality under the laws of armed conflict and international humanitarian law, by the Sri Lankan armed forces,” the Proclamation ordered.
Under its new mandate the Commission will also seek to determine whether the loss of civilian life was of the kind that occurs in “proportionate attacks against targeted military objectives in armed conflict” and whether the civilian casualties were either the deliberate or unintended consequences of the rules of engagement.
In its much-hailed final report, the LLRC said that it was their “considered view that that eye witness accounts and other material available to it indicate that considerable civilian casualties had in fact occurred during the final phase of the conflict”.
The LLRC recommended that the Government launch an investigation the specific instances mentioned by the Commission and any reported cases of deliberate attacks on civilians. “If investigations disclose the commission of any offences, appropriate legal action should be taken to prosecute/punish the offenders,” the LLRC report advised the Sri Lankan Government.
The Commission will also report on whether the LTTE as a non-State actor was subject to international humanitarian law in the conduct of its military operations. It will inquire into the LTTE’s use of civilians as human shields and if such action constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law or international human rights law.
The extended mandate of the Commission of Inquiry now includes investigations into the recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE, the terror organisation’s international criminal activities and suicide attacks ordered by LTTE Leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
July 17, 2014
