By Amaravathi –

Your visit to Sri Lanka, after years of failed efforts by the Sri Lankan Government to insult and intimidate you, is most welcome. Its outcome will be critically important for the future of Sri Lanka – whether it can  evolve as a democracy where universal human rights are observed or  whether the present autocratic   genocidal regime will be further entrenched in power for the indefinite future.

We are confident that you will act strictly consistent with the responsibilities of your high Office, and not let external  pressures deter you from your task, as reportedly was the case during the final months of the war, according to the  UN Internal Review of UN Actions in Sri Lanka—called the Petrie report (1)

Navi Pillay

To your credit, you were the only high UN official  who was prepared to speak the truth about ongoing atrocities and their possible implications as violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, before you were effectively silenced, until the end of the war  —when you called for a independent international investigation , explaining your reasons for it, which subsequently available information has amply justified. The Petrie  report noted the irony of the  “UN’s most senior human rights and humanitarian law official not having a direct role in the UN monitoring or supervision  or oversight  for UN action, or UN engagement with Security Council”

The Petrie panel therefore recommended that in future  the UN Human rights  Commissioner  be given an explicit and enhanced oversight role “ to coordinate the human rights promotion and protection activities throughout the UN system” as defined in the UN General Assembly resolution of 1993 setting up that Office. The Secretary General has already approved the Petrie recommendations.

Sri Lanka stands out as the only case in recent decades where the UN and the International Community remained not only silent but was complicit in mass atrocities against civilians  during the war. They have  also failed to hold the Government to account for its failure in over four years to implement its many  promises to the UN and UN Human Rights Council in May 2009 on accountability, human rights, democracy, devolution and reconciliation, with dire consequence to all Sri Lankans.

Madame High Commissioner, you now  have  the opportunity as well as the moral and legal high ground to help remedy those wrongs.

You are already well informed on events in Sri Lanka during and after the war. However, we wish that your highest priority during your visit will be to listen first hand to the silenced victims of both the mass atrocities during the war as well as in the years since.

The impressive new network of transport infrastructure  in the war devastated  North East is welcome. It is, however, it is important that you find out what is behind that impressive façade for the war affected people, or  whether it is serving  mainly    the Government’s plans for militarization and ethnic cleansing  and demographic and cultural change of those areas, and not national reconciliation.

The truth is that the Sri Lankan Government and its foreign collaborators have never expected to be seriously called to account for their alleged crimes. They believed, and still seem to believe, that they could continue indefinitely to buy time by simply asserting    that no crimes were committed  and , as usual,  through promises  which they had no intention to implement.

As recently as this April, Foreign Minister Pieris revealed the Governmment’s  true intention  when he declared in Parliament that Sri Lanka would never accept the UNHRC resolution of March 2013, and even added  a few caustic comments questioning your integrity. More recently however, the Government seems to  have decided to charm you with more worthless promises in order to buy more time. We are confident that you will not be persuaded by such blandishments, either by Sri Lanka or by its   supporters.

In  conclusion ,we would  also request that you give particular attention to the following.

1.Among the  information  on the mass atrocities  during the war that has been publicly available for a number of years  are the  Channel Four video documentary called “ Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” ,  reports of two of your own  UN Rapporteurs  on Extrajudicial Killings confirming the authenticity of army executions of unarmed prisoners, as well as satellite photos of the conflict areas—all of which support and supplement the credible allegations in the two Un Panel reports.

The  Sri Lankan Government has rejected all of them as baseless and even fabricated.

It is  critically important that  an objective evaluation of the authenticity and reliability of these sources and their implication to accountability be made under your direction, and be made available to UNHRC to help it in  arriving at an informed decision.

It is particularly unfortunate that there has been no follow up action of the reports of the UN Rapporteurs,  especially since the  2013  UNHRC resolution calls for an additional eight UN Rapporteurs on different aspects of the Sri Lankan situation.

2. It is astonishing that all the reports on Sri Lankan events  ( including the UN Panel reports) have  avoided mention of the genocidal pattern of  the  alleged crimes under international human rights and humanitarian law, even though  the stark fact is that the hundreds of thousands of  victims  in  the North East  were almost entirely Tamils and the alleged perpetrators were predominantly the almost 100% Sinhala security forces. This has been even more evident since the end of the war, driven by the Government’s  commitment to Sri Lanka as a Sinhala Buddhist country.

We hope that this  serious  gap will be be addressed in your  report to UNHRC.

3. Two  of the most vicious but under reported aspects of the Sri Lankan events, which are also  of central  relevance to 2.  above,  are the pervasive use of sexual abuse and rape by Sinhala security forces and their paramilitaries  against Tamils, and the extensive use  of land appropriations  and ethnic cleansing of the North East, under  heavy cover of militarization.

4.Finally,  while your visit will help in ascertaining the broad contours of the current situation, only an independent international investigation, as has indeed been done in every other case of mass atrocities in recent years, and which you have already called for, can provide a clear and comprehensive picture of the troubling events during and after the war, and an effective system of remedies and monitoring.

Footnote (1)

The Petrie report   concluded  that “events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond to early warning and the evolving events during the final stages of the conflict and its aftermath, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of civilians and in contradiction with the principles and responsibilities adopted by Member States and the Secretariat, agencies and programs.”

The UN internal report also concluded that “ the UN’s political engagement in Sri Lanka during the period from 2007 to the end of the conflict in May 2009 rmained secondary to the efforts of external actors.. These included other countries in the region, including India and China, along with Norway which had sponsored the CFA (Cease Fire Agreement); and the EU, Japan, and the US which, also along with Norway, formed a Co-Chair Group of States to coordinate financial contributions to Sri Lanka as a support to the peace process. The UN was not invited to be a member of the Co-Chair Group.”