1 October 2015
Together Against Genocide
Statement on the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution on Sri Lanka,
adopted at the 30th Session
Together Against Genocide (TAG) notes with appreciation the UN Human Rights
Council (HRC) Resolution on Sri Lanka that follows the HRC-mandated report of
the investigation of the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights into
Sri Lanka (OISL).
We are pleased the HRC resolution, co-signed by Sri Lanka, has adopted the
recommendations of the OISL in so far as it has affirmed that any transitional
justice mechanism in Sri Lanka must (in order to be credible) involve
international investigators, prosecutors, lawyers and judges. The HRC also
encourages and Sri Lanka has now consented to strengthen its Witness and
Victim Protection by effective measures. We note with satisfaction the HRC
encourages and the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has now consented to
investigate all alleged attacks by individuals and groups on journalists, human
rights defenders, members of religious minority groups and other members of
civil society, as well as places of worship, and to hold perpetrators of such
attacks to account and to take steps to prevent such attacks in the future.
We note with appreciation the HRC encourages and Sri Lanka has now consented
to introduce effective security sector reforms as part of its transitional justice
process, ensuring that no scope exists for retention in or recruitment into the
security forces of anyone credibly implicated in serious crimes involving human
rights violations or abuses or violations of international humanitarian law.
We note with appreciation, that with respect to the Tamil North East which
continues currently under military occupation, the HRC encourages and Sri
Lanka has now consented to accelerate the return of land to its rightful civilian
owners, and to undertake further efforts to tackle its military’s use of land and
military appropriation from the rightful (almost entirely ethnic Tamil) civilian
owners, in particular the ending of military involvement in civilian activities.
These are a few of the broad range of measures considered necessary by the UN
HRC.
We are grateful to the core-group (the UK, US, Montenegro and Macedonia), the
co-sponsors and the many missions notably Switzerland, the European Union,
Canada, Ireland and Argentina among others, who spoke out throughout the
session for strong measures for accountability and justice on the Island of Sri
Lanka, including in particular for the mass atrocities against Tamils in the final
phase of the ethnic conflict in 2009. It was encouraging to note consensus and
keen-ness within a broad swathe of HRC country representatives to ensure that a
credible justice process be initiated for the crimes against humanity and other
international crimes detailed in the OISL report. It has been emphasized
throughout that ‘credible’ means credible internationally and domestically, and
particularly in the eyes of the witnesses and survivors, including surviving family
of victims, be they based in Sri Lanka or abroad, the vast majority of whom are of
Tamil ethnicity.
Nevertheless we were dismayed at Sri Lanka’s (unsuccessful) interim efforts in
informal open consultations during the HRC30 session to wholesale delete from
the resolution almost all the key recommendations of the OISL report. This has
been followed by misleading and aggressive domestic messaging by the
Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) that has already cast doubt on their good intent
in carrying out promises made to other HRC members. We are reminded of Sri
Lanka’s long-history of abrogated pacts in relation to resolution of the ethnic
conflict there, not least the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam pact among others.
The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (MR Ranil Wickremasinghe) has said, after
agreeing to the resolution that with respect to justice for mass atrocities against
Tamils that the (ethnic Sinhala) ‘South will take care of Southerners’ implying
that key perpetrators of Sinhala ethnicity will not held to account for the mass
atrocities they have committed.
There is thus deep and legitimate doubt among the community of survivors and
witnesses as to the good intent of the government and the credibility of its
involvement in ensuring justice for mass atrocities.
We were particularly disappointed to note that the government of Sri Lanka has
refused to de-militarize the North and East, and this has been deleted from the
draft resolution proposed by the core group. We urge the UN to continue to
monitor and pursue this potentially volatile issue and to take action now to
prevent a repeat of mass atrocities by the Sri Lankan security services in the
future.
We are disappointed to note the aggressive opposition by Pakistan in informal
consultations and throughout the session with respect to demilitarization,
security sector and judicial reform in Sri Lanka, supported by China and Russia,
none of who have stellar records of respecting the rights of diverse non-majority
communities on their territories.
We are grateful to Switzerland and Estonia for urging Sri Lanka to join the
International Criminal Court (ICC) but note that GOSL continues to refuse to do
so. The government of Sri Lanka has taken no action to implement measures for
the prevention or punishment of genocide into its domestic mechanisms as
suggested by Switzerland.
Each of the lives lost remains precious to us and we continue to hope to see them
fully accounted for and their families granted Justice.
The HRC and especially those member states where many relatives of victims
and witnesses now live, after having fled persecution in Sri Lanka, must ensure
that the conditions are met for an honest Justice process.
HRC member states must take responsibility to ensure that the resolution
translates to successful prosecutions for the full range of international crimes
that have been committed against all people but especially against the Tamils
who have been subject to the heinous crime of genocide.
The HRC must ensure that the wide range of recommendations that help prevent
future ethnic persecution of Tamils as well as non-majority religious
communities in Sri Lanka must are implemented according to a speedy and
verifiable timetable.
We call upon HRC members to pursue the recommendations of the Human
Rights Council (OISL) report via the full range of domestic and bilateral
measures, including a review of military and commercial transactions with Sri
Lanka, domestic asylum laws for persecuted groups from the island and
prosecuting international crimes committed in Sri Lanka via universal
jurisdiction mechanisms.
More fundamentally, against a background of past UN failures (as outlined by the
Petrie report) the HRC must uncompromisingly pursue the implementation of
ALL the recommendations of the OISL report with a view to preventing
continuation/recurrence of the egregious violations outlined therein.