UN report on Sri Lanka not transmitted to Geneva

By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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Not only has UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon not asked for any Security Council, General Assembly or Human Rights Council action on the UN Panel of Experts report on war crimes in Sri Lanka -- he hasn't even transmitted it to Geneva, his spokesman acknowledged to Inner City Press on Tuesday:

Inner City Press: This is just a factual question that somebody has raised. That report of the Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka… I mean, rather, has the Secretary-General transmitted this report in some sort of a type of a formal fashion to either the High Commissioner on Human Rights or to the Human Rights Council in the run-up to its June session?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: As you know, we have said that the Secretary-General is studying the recommendations in the report that was submitted to him. That’s the first thing. The second is that he is also awaiting a response from the Sri Lankan authorities, an official response. In the meantime, he has already said that he will take up the recommendation that was made with regard to looking at what there is to learn internally about the UN’s response to what happened in Sri Lanka. And that mechanism of whatever form it takes will be going ahead in due course. With regard to the specific points you’ve made, the report is publicly available, in its entirety. It was published as you know, and is available for Member States and for the different parts of the UN system to see.

Inner City Press: I don’t know why the UN works that way, but there seems to be some expectation of a formal transmittal from New York to Geneva, and I just wanted to know… I mean, maybe I am wrong, but has that… has that taken place or will it be taking place?

Spokesperson: Well, as I say, it’s in the public domain. It’s publicly available and many Member States and others have seen it and I am sure that they are taking it rather seriously.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka has invited countries to come and learn its counter terrorism techniques, which are described in the UN Report.

© Inner City Press

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Sri Lanka: Confronting the killing fields

By Steve Crawshaw | The Jakarta Post
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A hard-hitting UN report has found compelling evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the final phase of the war in Sri Lanka in spring 2009.

In the face of repeated government denials, the report’s authors reckon that up to 40,000 died in just a few terrible months in spring 2009 — kept out of the sight of television cameras, and out of the politicians’ minds. The report calls for an international investigation, which could have far-reaching consequences.

Members of the Non-Aligned Movement, as they meet in Bali this week, have a critical part to play in ensuring these terrible abuses never happen again and that survivors of the conflict can seek justice, thus laying the groundwork for reconciliation.

They should encourage the UN and the government of Sri Lanka to implement the panel’s recommendations on accountability, including the panel’s call for the Secretary General to establish an independent mechanism to investigate these allegations.

In the lead-up to second anniversary of the end of the conflict on May 19, governments have praised the report — and then seemed ready to bury it. A different ending can, however, still be achieved.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commissioned the report, but he and governments alike have so far failed to act on its main recommendation, a commission of inquiry — despite the fact that Ban and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa jointly promised accountability.

The report, which talks of “a grave assault on the entire regime of international law”, provides a chance to achieve reconciliation through truth and accountability, providing the stability that post-conflict Sri Lanka badly needs. It corroborates the evidence that human rights groups have been putting forward for the past two years.

If its recommendations are acted on, it may be possible to ensure accountability for the crimes committed by both sides. Conversely, the failure to act would be a missed opportunity on a grand scale.

The authors document violations by the rebel Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan government forces alike. The UN Panel of Experts, who wrote the report, comprise a strong body of experience and expertise: Marzuki Darusman, former Indonesian attorney-general; Steven Ratner, professor at the University of Michigan and an expert on the laws of war; and Yasmin Sooka, who was a member of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Crimes included the Tamil Tigers’ use of human shields and the shooting of civilians who tried to escape the deadly trap in which they were caught, and the targeted shelling by Sri Lankan forces of crowded hospitals and civilian encampments inside an area which the authorities macabrely called a “no-fire zone”.

Despite all this, governments have stood back. Robert Blake, US assistant secretary of state, argues for an internal Sri Lankan inquiry instead of the international investigation that the report calls for. Others have not even gone that far.

A credible domestic investigation would be welcome — but the word “credible” is the sticking point. The UN report concludes that the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, which the government set up to look into the war and its aftermath, is “deeply flawed” — in short, a continuation of what a 2009 Amnesty International report described as twenty years of make-believe.

An international inquiry, by contrast, would help Tamils and Sinhalese alike accept the reality of the charges leveled against the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan government forces, where there is currently too much denial.

In different contexts around the world, we have seen that acknowledging the truth of violations on both sides is a first step towards reconciliation.

The Sri Lankan government talked of “zero civilian casualties”, even while the bloodbath (to quote UN on-the-ground spokesman Gordon Weiss) was under way.

Some took the Sri Lankan declarations at face value, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. As a human rights advocate in New York at that time, I remember a Security Council ambassador explaining that he hoped Sri Lanka would “continue” its policy of minimizing civilian casualties — a policy which, he implied, had enjoyed success so far.

Ban Ki-moon, contradicting his own panel of independent experts, suggests he can only establish an investigation with the consent of the government concerned.

That would set a sad precedent in terms of diminishing the moral authority of the Secretary-General’s post. Ban, who faces re-election later this year, can still show leadership on the issue (just as he did by creating the Panel in the first place), not least by urging that the UN Security Council should act on the report’s recommendations.

Some conclude that the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians somehow don’t matter, as long as the Tamil Tigers — a group which was listed as a terrorist organization in many countries — were defeated.

The world’s generals and politicians alike must understand, however, that there can be no justification for war crimes and crimes against humanity. What the UN report describes as the “discourse of triumphalism” finally needs to be confronted.

The UN report is not published in isolation. A Channel 4 television documentary, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, will be broadcast early in June in the UK.

The one-hour program looks set to include footage not previously broadcast, as well as a shocking video of summary execution and rape-murder which Channel 4 News already aired (the video was denounced by the Sri Lankan government as a fake, and later authenticated by UN experts).

The UN report gives governments — at the Security Council in New York, at the Human Rights Council in Geneva and at the gathering of the Non Aligned Movement in Indonesia on May 23-27 — a wake-up call to ensure a measure of accountability. That historic opportunity must be seized.

The writer is international advocacy director of Amnesty International.

© The Jakarta Post

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Militarization of Sri Lankan society?

By Feizal Samath | Saudi Gazette
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Just as government troops prepared this week to celebrate the second anniversary of the decimation of Tamil separatist rebels, thousands of young, new entrants to national universities across Sri Lanka on Monday began entering military camps for a three-week training course that has triggered an intense debate as to whether the country is heading towards a militarized society.

“Militarization of society? That is already happening,” noted Prof. S.I. Keethaponcalan, Head of the Department of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Colombo, echoing the views of many civil society leaders.

Sajith Premadasa, co-Deputy Leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) accused the government of “further” militarizing the society despite the conclusion of the war in May, two years ago. Soldiers have been rehearsing for a “victory” celebration to be held in Colombo on Friday, May 27 to mark two years of the end of a nearly three-decades battle with the rebels in which thousands of combatants and civilians died.

Two weeks ago the government said the 22,000 students, whose university career starts around August, would be asked to follow a compulsory leadership and “positive development” course at 28 army camps aimed at instilling discipline and to wean them away from violence, ragging and political activity on campus.

Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake, who handles the universities, and his officials have been at pains to explain that this is not a political program and not any kind of military training. Higher Education Ministry Secretary Sunil J. Navaratne denied that the students were being forced into military training saying the army camps were selected for this purpose because they had the space and accommodation facilities for large groups of students.

However the increasing influence of the military in the governance of Sri Lanka with senior military officers being appointed as ambassadors, handling urban development and to various government institutions, has led many people to infer that the latest scheme is an attempt to instill military-type discipline into university students and that similar training for students in national schools could be the next step in the militarization of institutionalized structures.

This is the first time university entrants are receiving this kind of pre-entry training. According to Prof. Siripala Hettige, a senior sociologist attached to the Colombo University, the Colombo campus has always had its own orientation training for new entrants. “We provide them guidance on various aspects of university life and also career guidance,” he said.

Responding to the military-type training scheme, he said very little is known about this scheme “other than what has been reported in the newspapers”. He said, “It’s not right to comment on a program that we have little knowledge about. What should have happened is that there should have been transparency in this scheme which has not been discussed, as far as I am aware, with the university and its staff.”

Political affairs Professor Keethaponcalan looks at it at two levels. “One is that at a national level, political parties have been competing with each other for the support of university students. With this move the government appears to be taking everyone to their side and wants them on their side. Secondly there is little resistance within the majority Sinhala community,” he said adding that this is an issue for students from the minority Tamil community.

“This may be an ethnic agenda because I’m positive that many Tamil students will drop out since going to army camps is an issue for them,” he added. Over the 30-odd years of conflict, scores of Tamil youth and other Tamils have been questioned or detained in military camps mainly in the northern province where the Tamils mostly live.

Army camps in the north, in those days, instilled a sense of fear, as parents often spent endless hours or days at these camps trying to locate a son or daughter who had gone missing, only to be told that the missing person was not there.

However in this case, even Sinhala parents are reluctant to send their university-entrant children to army camps. “By making this training mandatory, Higher Education Ministry authorities are being unjust to the parents and students. My youngest daughter has to travel far away for the training program,” Nalani Ganegoda, a concerned parent from the north-central district of Anuradhapura was quoted as saying in the Sunday Times newspaper.

Another parent was quoted in the same newspaper as saying he feared sending his daughter to the training camp. “My daughter was not into sports and physical activities; she was only interested in studies. We come from a conservative family and my concern is that the ministry does not explain the type of outdoor activities,” he said.

Residents in the northern town of Jaffna, the former seat of the Tamil insurgency, said many of the university entrants headed to their training camps over the weekend. “There doesn’t seem to be any worries among the students and parents over this kind of training,” one resident said.

The People’s Liberation Front or JVP, a former revolutionary group-turned political party, also urged parents not to send their children to army camps to undergo what it described as military training. JVP Parliamentarian Anura Kumara Dissanayake told reporters that the government could not take legal action against students who do not take part in the training as there is no legal provision to bar them from university if they do not attend the program.

On Friday, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the program and the court requested the government to consider postponing the program for a week till this case is concluded. But the government went ahead with the program saying students were already heading for the camps and millions of rupees have been already been spent on the plan.

© Saudi Gazette

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Sri Lanka anti-terror seminar faces boycott call

AFP | Lanka Business Report
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A leading human rights group urged governments on Tuesday to boycott a conference on fighting insurgents organised by Sri Lanka, which wants to share its experience of defeating separatist militants.

Sri Lanka will host the three-day meeting "Defeating Terrorism - Sri Lanka Experience" in the capital Colombo next Tuesday and has invited 54 countries of which 42 have agreed to attend.

China, Russia and South Asian nations Bangladesh, India, Maldives and Pakistan are among those who will send military delegations, while Western nations have decided to stay away, Sri Lanka's army chief said on Monday.

"This conference is nothing more than a public relations exercise to whitewash abuses," Human Rights Watch's Asia Director Brad Adams said in a statement.

"No professional, law-abiding military should take part in this farce," he added.

International rights groups have accused Sri Lankan forces of killing thousands of civilians and blocking humanitarian access to the affected population during the climax of its battle with Tamil separatists in 2009.

The outlawed Tamil Tiger group fought for 37 years for a homeland for ethnic Tamils before being crushed in a giant government offensive that has since been dogged by war crimes allegations.

Among those who declined to send military delegations were the United States, Britain, France, Australia and Switzerland -- all of whom have criticised Colombo over alleged rights abuses.

Sri Lanka's top arms supplier, China, is co-sponsoring the conference and two Chinese companies will also exhibit military hardware on the sidelines.

The meeting is being held amid mounting pressure for a war crimes investigation after a panel appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last month that there were "credible allegations" against Sri Lankan troops.

The UN estimates up to 100,000 people were killed in fighting between 1972 and 2009 while at least 7,000 civilians perished in the final months of the war.

© LBR

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Global powers to participate in Sri Lanka defence seminar on defeating terrorism

Colombo Page
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Several powerful countries are sending delegations to participate in a seminar organized by the Sri Lanka Army to share its experience on defeating the three decades long terrorism in the country.

Sri Lanka Army will host a three-day seminar from May 31 to June 2 on 'Defeating Terrorism - The Sri Lanka Experience' at Colombo Galadari Hotel.

The Russian Federation, plagued with terrorism in Chechnya will send six delegates, the highest number of participants from one country, to the seminar.

India will send three Colonels to take part in the seminar while a Major General will lead the Pakistan delegation. A Lieutenant General is to lead the Bangladesh delegation.

China, the emerging global power will have two of its defence companies Chinese Poly technologies and China Electrical and Technologies Corporation displaying their products at the three-day event.

The two Chinese companies have sponsored a major portion of the cost of the seminar which is about 45 million rupees, the Army Commander Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya has said.

As many as 54 countries have been invited initially and 42 of them are sending over 300 delegates including defence personnel, commanders, experts, professionals, academics and senior military officials, the Army Commander said at a press conference held today.

"To date, a total of 42 countries have so far confirmed their participation. More are expected to respond within the next few days," he added.

Several eminent speakers including terrorism experts are scheduled to address the seminar. During these sessions Sri Lanka Army will elaborate how it conducted the Humanitarian Operation with all the field commanders at hand.

Over 25 international media organizations have already confirmed their participation to cover the event.

"Everything is transparent and media is at liberty to meet any of those contributors on the sidelines of the seminar," the Commander added.

Lieutenant General Jayasuriya said the sessions would contribute to broaden understanding and exchange of knowledge among delegates with relevance to the Sri Lankan perspective.

"The speakers will elaborate on lessons learnt and reasons that led to the military success," he added.

Some topics of the sessions will be themed on 'Challenges and Prospects of Counter Terrorism', 'Evolution of LTTE and International Networking', 'Overview of Counter Terrorism in Sri Lanka', 'Humanitarian Operations', 'Force Multipliers in Counter Terrorism', 'Combat Service Support and Evolution of Training', 'IDPs Resettlement', and 'Rehabilitation, Reintegration and De-mining'.

© Colombo Page

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