Your Excellency,

international community to seize every opportunityExhorting , Secretary General Ban Ki Moon sent the following message to a meeting on ‘Building a future on Peace and Justice’. “One of the most fundamental challenges of peacemaking and peace building is confronting the past while building a just foundation for the future. Fighting impunity and pursuing peace are not incompatible objectives – they can work in tandem.”

Expectations are high that the question of impunity in Sri Lanka would be taken up in the 19th session of the UNHRC in March this year and representing your country at one of the most prestigious institution you will no doubt endorse and be proud of what it stands for.

The recommendations of the Lessons Learn and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC); described by the UN panel as ‘failing to satisfy key international standards of independence and impartiality’, have been given international accord only in so far as matters concerned with devolution, demilitarization of the NE, release of illegally incarcerated Tamil youths, good governance, all of which the critics say, could have been implemented without the LLRC.

Despite Sri Lankan government’s two and half years of propaganda that their brutal campaign against the LLTE was conducted with little or no damage to civilians, the LLRC accepts that “considerable civilian casualties had in fact occurred during the final phase of the conflict” and “that shells had in fact fallen on hospitals causing damage and resulting in casualties”. It also recognised the “possible implication of the Security Forces for the resulting death or injury to civilians” albeit only three incidents “brought to the attention of the Commission”.

The LLRC recommends that its finding; as regards UN panel estimate of nearly 40,000 civilian casualties, be further investigated. To substantiate the recommendation, one has to examine the history of Sri Lankan commissions of inquiries.

There have been many commissions appointed by the Sri Lankan government during the past thirty‐five years to inquire into human rights violations, few of which are detailed here for brevity:

  • One-man Sansoni Commission of 1977- to inquire into 10 civilian deaths at the Fourth Conference on International Association of Tamil Research in 1972 and 500 civilian deaths during state aided violence of 1977. No one was prosecuted.
  • Kokkaddicholai Commission of 1991- to investigate 67 civilian deaths and disappearance of 56 civilians- all Tamils. Seventeen soldiers and one officer were charged for extra judicial killings. All acquitted and punished for dereliction of duties.
  • Presidential Truth Commission of Ethnic Violence 2001- to investigate 3000 Tamil civilian death in the 1983 ethnic violence by government agents (as in paragraph 30 of UN 3 panel Report). No one was prosecuted.
  • Presidential Commission of Inquiry of 2006- to investigate 16 cases. The two principle cases were the killings of 5 students in Trincomalee and 16 workers of France Action Contre la Faim in Mutur. All victims are Tamils.

International Independent Group of Eminent Person (IIGEP) appointed by president to ensure commission’s work met international standards left in protest for the following reasons:

(a) the dual role played by the Attorney General’s Office, defending and investigating

the accused;

(b) lack of witness protection, before, during, and after the testimony;

(c) the in‐camera proceedings and inadequate protection for whistle blowers;

(d) lack of cooperation by the government entities to provide information; and

(e) the Commission’s lack of financial independence to carry out its duties.

The government neither extended the Commission’s mandate nor published its report thus denying justice to the victims.

M.C.M. Iqbal was secretary to two of Sri Lanka’s “truth commissions” called Central Zone Commission 1994 and All Island Commission 1998 to investigate nearly 60,000 disappearances in the south. Concluding his presentation at a panel discussion organized by International Commission of Jurists at the UN in Geneva March 2010 said, “The three major parties in Sri Lanka – the UNP, the SLFP and the JVP are not interested in dealing with perpetrators of disappearances.  They have not pressed for the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiries in this regard  perhaps  because, at some time or the other, each of these parties have themselves  used this weapon  on those who  had become  thorns on their backs. In the circumstances the victims of disappearances who are waiting for justice have no hope whatsoever of getting justice meted out to them  in the near future”.

http://groundviews.org/2010/03/23/still-waiting-for-justice-in-sri-lanka/

Lankanewsweb carried a news item in December 2011 that The International media obtaining a statement under oath from a former Sri Lankan soldier and witnessed by a public official of the state of New York, that extra-judicial killings of surrendering or captured members of the Tamil Tigers were carried out as ‘standard practice’ and "white- vans," were used by what he describes as "hit squads" of a few elite assassins hand picked by the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse.

http://www.lankanewsweb.com/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=758:sri-lankan-government-gave-orders-to-commit-war-crimes-new-evidence-shows&catid=1:general&Itemid=29

According to a leaked cable of the former US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert Blake, a former MP, Mr. Mangala Samaraweera confirmed that the army commander Sarath Fonseka used a group called the Lion Cubs to engage in extrajudicial activities with the knowledge and approval of Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa to ‘dispose of the bodies of their victims at sea.”

http://colombotelegraph.com/2012/01/26/wikileaks-rajapaksas-use-a-group-called-the-lion-cubs-to-abductions-and-dispose-bodies-at-sea/

German Federal Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in inaugurating the same meeting on “Building a future on Peace and Justice’, that Germany has returned to the fold of respected nations. We are glad that this is so because we… processed and came to terms with the barbaric acts of the Nazis”.

The UN report; having considered the history of impunity and the ‘deeply flawed’ LLRC mechanism, recommends that the Secretary-General should immediately proceed to establish an independent international mechanism. It is my hope that you will endorse the finding of the UN in keeping with its guiding principles and help Sri Lanka return to the ‘fold of respected nations’. Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Joseph Ladislaus

the Government of Sri Lanka had appointed several commissions to enquire into human rights violations and take action against the guilty. To mention a few of these, the Samsoni Commission of 1977; Kokkaddicholai   Commission of 1991; the Presidential Truth Commission of 2001 on ethnic violence and the 2006 Presidential Commission of Enquiry. In 2010 the Government of Sri Lanka has appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. What happened to these enquiry commissions? In some cases, the commissions did not submit any report, in few others their reports were shelved without publication and the Government did not act upon it. The reports rarely criticized the government functionaries. According to perceptive observers, the same fate will befall the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. 

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Govt. seeks international support

By Rasika Jayakody

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has assigned several key Cabinet Ministers to visit UN Human Rights Council member states and garner their support ahead of the UNHRC session scheduled for March.

Under this new plan, a delegation led by Public Administration Minister John Seneviratne will visit Chile and Uruguay, two South American countries. At the same time, Cabinet Spokesman and Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella will also lead a delegation to another group of UNHRC member states.

Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Pieris, who is presently in New Delhi, will be visiting Africa on 29 January. A senior official of the Foreign Ministry told Ceylon Today that Pieris will visit two African countries during the visit. Foreign Employment Minister Dilan Perera, according to government sources, will also be assigned to lead a delegation.

Meanwhile, President Mahinda Rajapakse himself will visit Singapore and Myanmar before the UNHRC session in March. Although he was scheduled to visit Pakistan early next month, a senior government spokesman said, the visit is not confirmed yet.

During these visits, the high profile Sri Lankan delegations will brief the UNHRC member nations on the implementation process of the LLRC report and the ongoing reconciliation process in Sri Lanka, a senior government spokesman told Ceylon Today.

The Sri Lankan delegations are also tasked to counter the “Channel 4 allegations”, during their bi-lateral discussions with foreign counterparts.

“We have prepared ourselves for whatever happens, and we are willing to share whatever information we have with the UNHRC,” Plantation Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told Ceylon Today on Monday.

This move comes in the wake of media reports that United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Stephen Rapp is likely to visit Sri Lanka.

Though the government has said there is no official communication regarding the visit so far, Ceylon Today reliably learns Rapp is expected to visit Sri Lanka next month, prior to the UNHRC session in March.

Rapp’s visit to Sri Lanka is expected to be a precursor to the international community’s push to have the LLRC report discussed at the March sitting of the UNHRC in Geneva.

Rapp is the key official in the Obama Administration on war crimes around the world, and successfully led the prosecution against former Liberian President Charles Taylor on war crimes charges and for crimes against humanity.