| Sri Lanka: Rising Threat of Post-War Disappearances and Injustice - AHRV |
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 The Sri Lankan government’s failure to address serious human rights violations in the immediate post-war environment is leading to growing concerns of new disappearances, unlawful killings and unauthorised incarcerations, marked by attacks on persons reporting on these matters. This is a continuation of what the Amnesty International (AI) had stated in its report:"Twenty Years of Make-Believe: Sri Lanka's Commissions of Inquiry" revealing the continuing failure of successive Sri Lankan governments to provide any accountability for serious human rights violations including enforced disappearances, killings, and torture of those non combatant civilians who had no part to play in the war except that they lived in the conflict zones and who could have been relatives of some combatants.
The Sri Lankan government has a long record of disappearances, with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (in 1991) having received almost 15,000 reports of enforced disappearances, which has been further reinforced by recent reports by Human Rights Watch indicating that the Sri Lankan government has detained more than 9,000 persons purported to be of the LTTE cadre and / or persons suspected of such connections. This, coupled with the 300,000 ethnic Tamils held in government controlled detention camps or internment camps as they have been sometimes described, with little or no independent monitoring, raises serious concerns of further disappearances and other grave human rights abuses. It is reported that already hundreds have gone missing, with no authentic records of inmates being maintained. The retiring Chief Justice of Sri Lanka has commented that what was happening within these camps was outside the jurisdiction of the law. Brad Adams, the Asia Director at Human Rights Watch has stated:"The country desperately needs healing and the government should make clear to everyone, especially Tamils, that it will respect their rights…this is crucial for building trust between communities". It is unfortunate that, despite the 23 May joint- statement by the Sri Lankan President and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that, 'The Government will take measures to address those grievances', recent events have proved otherwise. The AI report depicts a criminal justice system that is subject to political pressure, lacking effective witness protection, mired by bribery and the sins of excessive laws delay. To date, the justice system relating to human rights has failed to prosecute any major abuses committed purportedly either by the LTTE or by the Sri Lankan State. The Presidential Commission made no progress in the investigations of the high profile murders, such as the killing of the 17 aid workers in Muttur and the 5 Tamil students in Trincomalee. The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons, which was appointed to overlook the proceedings of the Presidential Commission, resigned through frustration, complaining of a lack of commitment on the part of the Sri Lankan government. The Australians for Human Rights of the Voiceless (AHRV) joins other like organizations in calling for the establishment of an Independent International Commission to investigate allegations of human rights violations by both the Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE in the recent combat. As noted by Sam Zarafi of Amnesty International, "due to the scale of the problem of impunity in Sri Lanka, accountability can only be achieved with the active commitment of the Sri Lankan government, supported by systematic and sustained international human rights monitoring and technical assistance". The AHRV also calls for broader human rights protection, through the establishment of a UN human rights monitoring presence, to assist in the investigation of abuses, thus ensuring justice under the Sri Lankan criminal justice system. Media Release by Australians for Human Rights of the Voiceless. |
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