Sri Lanka generals must face sanctions, says UN
COLOMBO REJECTS REPORT AS HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF SEEKS PROBE INTO BRUTAL WAR CRIMES
THE UN human rights chief last Wednesday (27) called for an International Criminal Court investigation into Sri Lanka’s Tamil separatist conflict and sanctions against top generals and others accused of war crimes.
Michelle Bachelet accused Sri Lanka of reneging on promises to ensure justice for thousands of civilians killed in the final stages of the 37-year separatist war that ended a decade ago.
“Domestic initiatives for accountability and reconciliation have repeatedly failed to produce results, more deeply entrenching impunity, and exacerbating victims’ distrust in the system,” she said in her latest report on Sri Lanka.
The government of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa has reversed advances made under previous administrations and the island nation was on an “alarming path towards recurrence of grave rights violations,” the report said.
Surveillance of rights activists and dissidents has increased and a climate of self-censorship has emerged, it added.
Rajapaksa won a 2019 presidential election on a nationalist agenda which included a promise that troops who crushed Tamil rebels would not be prosecuted.
He was the top defence official when government forces crushed the guerrillas in a military campaign that ended in May 2009. His brother Mahinda was president then and is prime minister now.
UN reports have accused Sri Lankan troops of shelling hospitals and indiscriminate aerial bombardments, executing surrendering rebels and causing the disappearance of thousands of minority Tamils.
At least 100,000 people were killed in the war and allegations were made that 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final onslaught. The president, a retired army lieutenant colonel, threatened last year to withdraw from the UN rights council if it pursued allegations against his troops.
In her latest assessment, Bachelet recommended for the first time that the ICC look into Sri Lanka’s case, and said action should be taken against war criminals, including members of the defeated Tamil Tiger guerrilla group.
“Member states can pursue investigation and prosecution of international crimes committed by all parties in Sri Lanka before their national courts,” she said.
The 16-page report to be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Council also calls for possible targeted sanctions “such as asset freezes and travel bans against credibly alleged perpetrators” of rights violations.
The report, whose findings were quickly rejected as baseless by Sri Lankan authorities, named current army chief Shavendra Silva and defence secretary Kamal Gunaratne, whom it said commanded forces that battled Tamil Tigers separatist rebels.
“They respectively commanded the 58th and 53rd Divisions, which were credibly alleged to have committed grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the armed conflict,” it said.
When Silva was appointed in August 2019, a Foreign Ministry statement said raising allegations against him was “regrettable” and the decision was a sovereign one.
In Colombo, a senior Sri Lankan
official swiftly rejected the report. “Unsubstantiated accusations against government officers are wrong. If they have something they have to follow an internationally accepted procedure,” retired Admiral Jayanath Colombage, a Foreign Ministry state secretary, said.
Sri Lanka has resisted repeated calls for an independent investigation and the Rajapaksa brothers had previously denied any war crimes were committed.
However, ahead of this month’s UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva, president Rajapaksa last week did a U-turn and said Sri Lanka would investigate some allegations. He gave a commission of inquiry six months to look into previous inquiries into allegations of “human rights violations, serious violations of international humanitarian law”.
However, the UN rights body noted last Wednesday that the new commission “lacks diversity and independence, and its terms of reference do not inspire confidence it will produce any meaningful result.”
Bachelet called on member states to take action to preserve evidence from key cases such as the killing of 17 aid workers from a French charity in August 2006 and the 2009 assassination of newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge. The UN rights chief said several top police officers involved in high-profile cases had been penalised or arrested to stifle investigations.
She also criticised President Rajapaksa for granting a pardon in 2020 to an army officer convicted and jailed for killing eight Tamil civilians.