Tamil Justice

AFP – S.Lanka to block visits by UN probing war crimes

Sri Lanka will ban visits by the three-member United Nations panel investigating alleged human rights abuses in the final months of the island’s civil war, a senior minister said Thursday.

…”We will not issue them with visas. We will not allow them into this country,” External Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris told reporters…

AFP – ‘UN war crimes panel chief criticises S.Lanka ban’

The head of a UN panel probing alleged war crimes during Sri Lanka’s civil war has criticised Colombo’s decision to ban him and colleagues from the country, a report said Friday.

…”Everybody loses out if we cannot go to Sri Lanka, it will make it harder for the truth to be unearthed,” Darusman told the BBC, describing the ban as “most unfortunate”…

The following motion was proposed by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and passed with support from all major parties in Australian Senate on Thursday 24 June 2010.

That the Senate:

(a) notes:

(i) the recent report from the International Crisis Group on War Crimes in Sri Lanka;

(ii) this report recommends, among other things, for the United Nations to conduct an independent international inquiry into the alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka during the last year of the conflict;

(b) welcomes:

(i) The United Nations Secretary General’s establishment of an Advisory Panel on Sri Lanka;

(ii) The establishment in Sri Lanka of a Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, and urges the Sri Lankan Government to ensure the Commission operates in an independent way; and

(c) reaffirms the importance of credible investigations into all allegations of violations of human rights, and

(d) Calls on the Australian Government to support an effective process of national reconciliation, to allow Sri Lanka to move forward after years of conflict.

Reuters – Sri Lanka rules out visas for UN war crimes panel

* UN panel not needed, Sri Lanka says
* Sri Lanka also rejects EU demands
* EU wanted written rights reform pledges

Sri Lanka on Thursday ruled out giving visas to members of a U.N. panel looking into possible war crimes and said it would not accept European Union conditions for extending trade concessions.

Sri Lanka for more than a year has defied Western pressure over accountability for potential war crimes and human rights violations in the last stages of its quarter-century war with the separatist Tamil Tigers, which it won in May 2009.

Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris said the government would not issue visas to the U.N. panel, which the world body says is merely there to advise Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on methods of accountability, and is not an investigative body. [ID:nSGE65M05J]

“We will not issue visas to the panel. We don’t think we need them,” Peiris told reporters.

Sri Lanka has its own commission looking into the last seven years of the war, and insists that despite a three-decade history of ineffectual local investigations into rights violations, this one will uncover any wrongdoing.

Rights groups took advantage of the victory anniversary to renew a push for a war crimes probe, saying there was evidence — which they did not make public — that both the government and Tigers were responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

They hope that the U.N. panel will provide a roadmap to a full international inquiry. Sri Lanka denies it ever targeted civilians and says the accusations have been maliciously manipulated or fabricated by Tiger supporters.

NO TO EU DEMANDS

Peiris also said the cabinet had reviewed the EU’s offer to extend access to the Generalised System of Preferences Plus trade scheme, due to be withdrawn on Aug. 15 unless the Indian Ocean nation made a written pledge to certain rights reforms. [ID:nSGE65L06T]

“We were not prepared to obtain these concessions at any cost. That’s not the attitude of a self-respecting government,” Peiris told reporters.

That will cost Sri Lanka about 100 million euros ($123 million) annually, with its biggest trade partner for garments, one of its top foreign exchange earners, and other products.

Among the EU demands were lifting of wartime emergency laws that grant the government wide arrest powers and implementation of a constitutional amendment that would make the police and judiciary independent from presidential influence, Peiris said.

“These are matters in which the judgment must be made by an elected government. These are not matters in which any foreign government can take decisions, he said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government says the Western push for accountability is fuelled by Tamil Tiger supporters in the diaspora and is hypocritical, given Sri Lanka was fighting a group on U.S. and EU terrorism lists.

Washington and Britain, he has said, cannot point an accusing finger over civilian deaths or human rights, given the thousands of civilians killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and indefinite detentions of terrorism suspects.

AFP – S.Lanka furious as UN’s Ban names war crimes panel

Sri Lanka is “deeply unhappy” at a move by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to name a panel to look into alleged war crimes committed during the final months of the island’s civil war, an official said Monday.

…”Our troops carried a gun in one hand and a copy of the human rights charter in the other,” the president said. “Our guns were not fired at a single civilian.”

Reuters – U.N.’s Ban names advisory panel on Sri Lanka war

U.N. Secretary-General on Tuesday announced the formation of a three-member panel to advise him on whether any crimes were committed in Sri Lanka during the final months of its war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

The Sri Lankan government had urged Ban not to appoint the advisory panel, saying it has its own commission to investigate possible human rights violations at the end of its war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam separatists in May 2009.

The panel will be chaired by Indonesia’s former Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters. Darusman was also recently named the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea.

The other two members of the panel, Nesirky said, are Yasmin Sooka, a human rights expert from South Africa, and Steven Ratner, a U.S. lawyer who advised the United Nations on how to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice in Cambodia.

Nesirky said Ban’s panel “will 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 conflict in Sri Lanka.”

“The panel hopes to cooperate with concerned officials in Sri Lanka,” he said.

“ROADMAP” FOR AN INVESTIGATION

Amid heavy Western pressure, Ban has insisted the panel must go forward despite Sri Lanka’s urging against it, and assertion that it is a violation of its sovereignty.

Peggy Hicks of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Ban’s panel was necessary since “the Sri Lankan government is unwilling to seriously investigate war-time human rights abuses.” She added that she hoped the panel would produce “a roadmap for an international investigation.”

Hicks urged Ban not to waste any time getting the long-delayed panel to work. “It’s important that there be no further delays,” she said.

HRW and other rights groups took advantage of last month’s first anniversary of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers to renew pressure for a probe of the end of the war, when they say tens of thousands of civilians died in the bloody final battles.

The government denies any war crimes took place, but rights groups say that both the government and the Tamil Tigers were guilty of human rights violations that resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths.

Nesirky said that the panel was not a formal investigative body and would be available to the Sri Lankan government, should they choose to take advantage of it. The group will have four months from the time it starts to complete its work.

If the panel decides to travel to Sri Lanka to interview witnesses and conduct research, it will need the permission of the government, Nesirky said.

Last month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa named an eight-person “Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation” to look into the last seven years of the war. U.N. officials say the world body is interested in its progress.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 23 June 2010 11.00AM

Tamils Urge Politicians to Support UN Probe on Sri Lankan War Crimes

Following yesterday’s announcement by the United Nations (UN)Secretary-General of a three-member advisory panel on alleged human rights abuses during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, the Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) urges all sides of Australian politics to support an Australian Senate motion scheduled for tomorrow on the very same issue.

“We welcome the UN’s announcement of an advisory panel and we hope the
UN will soon take the next step towards actually investigating these alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka,” said Dr Sam Pari, ATC spokesperson. “We hope all sides of Australian politics see the importance of bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice and support the Senate motion tomorrow,” she added.

Several eminent Australians have confirmed their support on this issue,
including Australian of the Year, Prof. Patrick McGorry.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will propose a Senate motion tomorrow calling “on the Australian Government, as an active member state of the United Nations, to encourage the UN to investigate the alleged war
crimes in Sri Lanka.”

Last month, independent reports by the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch cited photographs and eye witness testimonies strengthening claims of war crimes and reiterated their calls for an independent investigation into Sri Lanka.

Media contact:
Dr Sam Pari – 0433 428 967

International Crisis Group – War Crimes in Sri Lanak
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/191-war-crimes-in-sri-lanka.aspx

Human Rights Watch – Sri Lanka: New Evidence of Wartime Abuses
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/05/20/sri-lanka-new-evidence-wartime-abuses

Channel 4 News – Sri Lanka Tamil killings ‘ordered from the top’

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/sri+lanka+option/3652687

UN News Centre – Post-conflict solutions in Sri Lanka must tackle underlying issues – UN official

AFP – UN ignores Sri Lanka’s protest over war crimes panel

World Socialist Website – WSWS reporters visit the devastated Sri Lankan town of Kilinochchi

One year after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan government claims that life is returning to normal in the war-ravaged Vanni region. But as our reporting team found during their recent visit to Kilinochchi, that is far from the case. Tens of thousands of civilians who lost everything during the fighting have been “resettled” in the area with little government assistance.

From the archives (07/03):
The Guardian, UK – Sri Lanka’s unreported war
Sri Lanka has been accused by Human Rights Watch of widespread abductions in its counter-insurgency operations against the Tamil Tigers. Blame is levelled against the army, navy and police, but also against the government for failing to investigate the cases properly. Jonathan Gorvett is at the Civil Monitoring Commission headquarters in Pettah, where he talks to Jasemin, a woman whose husband was abducted last year

…Most of the abducted people are Tamils, many of them born outside Colombo, often in Jaffna, a majority Tamil city in the north…

BBC : Sri Lanka steps up pressure against foreign war panel

Sri Lanka’s government has stepped up diplomatic pressure against UN attempts to investigate its conduct in the against Tamil Tiger rebels.

But UN chief Ban Ki-moon says that he is still working on setting up a panel of experts to advise him on Sri Lanka’s human rights accountability. Sri Lanka’s foreign minister has said it would have no “moral justification”. Meanwhile, in the north, relatives of people who disappeared during the war have staged a demonstration. More

Turtle Bay Foreign Policy : Is the U.N. complicit in Sri Lankan war crimes?

Louise Arbour, the head of the International Crisis Group, called for an internal review of the U.N.’s conduct during Sri Lanka’s bloody 2009 civil war, telling Turtle Bay that the organization’s abandonment of national staff in a conflict zone and its failure to speak up more forcefully about abuses made it “close to complicit” in government atrocities.

Arbour said the United Nations compromised its principles for a lofty goal: to preserve the ability of aid workers to provide humanitarian assistance to those in desperate need of it. But she faulted the U.N.’s acceptance of “absolutely unacceptable” visa limitations on international staff and the U.N.’s decision to withdraw foreign staff from the northern Sri Lanka province of Vanni in September 2008, on the eve of government forces’ final offensive against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, leaving behind “very exposed” local Sri Lankan employees.  More

ABC Radio Australia PM – UN Refugee Agency may change some protection guidelines

The United Nations Refugee Agency is looking at changing its international protection guidelines for Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers. The changes would pave the way for Australia to send many more of the detainees on Christmas Island back to where they started. The Tamil Association is urging against any change to the guidelines, saying it’s no safer for Tamils in Sri Lanka. From Canberra, Alexandra Kirk reports.

“There is still 100- to 150,000 Tamils being held in military run camps in the north and the fact that there’s about another 10- to 15,000 Tamils being held in undisclosed areas where there are allegations of rape and torture that have been continuing for more than a year. I do not believe that the guidelines should be relaxed. Sri Lanka is still a very dangerous country for Tamil civilians regardless of whether they’re from the north, whether they’re from the east or anywhere on the island.” – Dr Sam Pari, National Spokesperson, Australian Tamil Congress

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