Sri Lanka: Calls mount for government action on war inquiry

IRIN
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As the government of Sri Lanka comes under increasing international pressure to implement recommendations submitted by a presidentially appointed war commission, IRIN asked national analysts which recommendations were most easily achievable.

International human rights groups and, until recently, several governments, including the UK, US and Australia, widely criticized the lack of accountability in the report by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

The commission set out in May 2010 to investigate the final phase of fighting between 2002 and May 2009, when the government declared victory over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Critics called for an independent inquiry, denouncing the report for ignoring alleged human rights abuses, an issue also raised in the Report of the UN Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka.

But weeks before the next UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva and nearly three months after the LLRC submitted its final report to the president on 20 November 2011, the US is calling for a resolution to prod Sri Lanka's government to act on the recommendations.

"While it has shortcomings on accountability, the commission addressed a number of crucial areas of concern to Sri Lankans and made substantive recommendations on reconciliation," said US Assistant Secretary Robert Blake at a recent meeting in Colombo.

Where to start

Jehan Perera, executive director of the Colombo-based National Peace Council, told IRIN he felt the release of a full list of detainees in government custody was the most important and "easiest to implement" of the dozens of recommendations.

Thousands of prisoners who went missing during the war remain unaccounted for, some of whom have been missing for more than two decades, he added. "If such a list were out, it would bring closure to a lot of families."

Ruki Fernando, head of the human rights in conflict programme at the local NGO, Law and Society Trust (LST), picked a day of commemoration for those who lost their lives. "A number of recommendations by the LLRC have the potential to build trust amongst communities," he said.

Other provisions he highlighted include the de-militarization and establishment of full civilian administration in the former conflict hotspot northern region; financial compensation for all survivors, or those who lost lives, limbs and possibly also property, according to the report; addressing disappearances; ensuring access to places of religious worship, including those in high security zones; and the use of both Sinhala and Tamil - the respective major languages for the former warring sides - for the national anthem.

Assistant Secretary Blake said the LLRC recommendations on devolution of authority, demilitarization, rule of law, media freedom, disappearances and human rights violations and abuses, "if implemented, could contribute to genuine reconciliation and strengthening democratic institutions and practices".

Game changer

Attention is shifting from forcing an international investigation to encouraging implementation of the recommendations because they are, at least, a starting point for reconciliation, say local activists.

The longstanding problem, said LST's Fernando, was that the Sri Lankan government had steadfastly refused to cooperate with any international mechanism to move past war.

"The report offers an opportunity to move forward. Now it is up to the government to show it is committed to do that," said Perera.

But Fernando was pessimistic.

"Looking at the scorecard after the LLRC report is not encouraging - there have been at least 22 abductions reported after the LLRC report [was released]; bodies are found in Colombo; peaceful campaigns [to locate the missing] in the north were obstructed in December and January; a protester was killed and others injured even last week in Chilaw [North Western Province)," he said.

Army inquiry

Two days after the US expressed its support for a resolution, the national army announced its appointment of a five-member panel to investigate whether troops executed prisoners and killed civilians during the final phase of fighting.

Human Rights Watch criticized the panel as a "transparent ploy to deflect a global push for a genuine international investigation, not a sudden inspiration nearly three years after the war".

The Attorney-General has also announced it is conducting follow-up interviews with witnesses who provided LLRC testimony to gather more information for further examination.

The UN Human Rights Council session is scheduled for 27 February to 23 March.

© IRIN

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Military war crimes inquiry 'eyewash'

BBC Sinhala
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Human rights watchdogs as well as the largest Tamil political party in Sri Lanka have rejected a court of inquiry appointed to investigate alleged war crimes by the country’s armed forces.

New York Based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the court of inquiry as a delaying tactic in the face of mounting international pressure.

In a statement, the army said its commander, Lt-Gen Jagath Jayasuriya, had appointed a five-member court of inquiry (CoI) to examine two separate reports; that of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) appointed by the president, and a documentary by the British commercial TV station, Channel 4.

Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya, was commander of the security forces in the Vanni, during the last few years of the war.

“The Sri Lankan army’s announced inquiry appears to be a transparent ploy to deflect a global push for a genuine international investigation, not a sudden inspiration nearly three years after the war,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch on Thursday.

An inquiry appointed by the commander, a colleague of senior officers implicated in serious abuses, and who oversaw the war cannot possibly be expected to be an independent and impartial finder of facts, Human Rights Watch said.

JHU Welcome CoI

However, a Sinhala nationalist partner of the Sri Lanka government, Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has welcomed the move to appoint a military court of inquiry based on the recommendations of the LLRC.

JHU spokesman Nishantha Warnasinghe told BBC Sandeshaya that Sri Lanka has the mechanism to address accountability issues.

“We oppose the court of inquiry if it was appointed due to pressure by the United States,” he said.

On Monday the US Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Blake, on a visit to Colombo, said Washington believed "there should be an investigation into war crimes”.

International investigation essential

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) described the appointment of the CoI as ‘eyewash’.

“An independent international investigation will eventually become necessary,” said MA Sumanthiran MP.

Although, there are ‘some recommendations’ by the LLRC that the government can be entrusted to implement, issues of war crimes and accountability can only be addressed by an independent investigation, he added.

Amnesty International (AI) said that the Sri Lankan government has been prompted to appoint the CoI. in the face of mounting evidence emerging for an international inquiry on human rights violations.

Researcher of AI Yolanda Foster called the establishment of the CoI as a “dramatic U turn by Sri Lanka’s security establishment" that denied any human rights violations in 2009.

© BBC Sinhala

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High security in Chilaw ahead of fisherman's funeral

Sunday Times Online
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Police and the Special Task Force continued to maintain tight security in the coastal belt to prevent any violence after the killing of a fisherman in Chilaw.

Rev Fr Claude Fernando, the Parish Priest of St Sebestian's Church, Wella Veediya, Chilaw told Timesonline that he has appealed to the fishing community in the village to refrain from any violence.

He said some 3,000 fishing families live in the area and among them was Anthony Fernando Warnakulasuriya who was killed in the shooting incident on Wednesday during a demonstration against the increased fuel prices.

The fish market in Chilaw remained closed on Friday for the fifth consecutive day.

The funeral of the fisherman is due to be held on Saturday.

© The Sunday Times

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Human rights advocates blast appointment of SL commander to peacekeeping panel

By Colum Lynch | Foreign Policy
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The U.N.'s chief human rights official, Navi Pillay, advised U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier this month to seek the removal of a former Sri Lankan officer from a top peacekeeping advisory committee because soldiers under his command may have committed abuses during the bloody, final months of the country's 28-year-long civil war, according to a confidential account obtained by Turtle Bay.

Major Gen. Shavendra Silva, who currently serves as Sri Lanka's deputy U.N. envoy, was selected last month by the U.N.'s Asia Group, which consists of all the U.N.'s Asian member states, to serve on the U.N. secretary general's senior advisory panel. The 20-member panel was established to examine the prospect of awarding pay increases to U.N. peacekeepers.

But his appointment has drawn intense criticism from Pillay and human rights advocates, who claim that his role as a military commander of Sri Lanka's 58th division, which faced allegations of rights abuses, should make him ineligible.

In a confidential letter to Ban, excerpts of which were reviewed by Turtle Bay, Pillay wrote that Silva's appointment threatens to harm the reputation of the U.N.'s peacekeeping division. She appealed to Ban and other top U.N. officials to ask the Asian Group to reconsider its decision, and select a replacement.

"I am seriously concerned that were Mr. Silva to assume this senior position related to U.N. peacekeeping the damage to the reputation and integrity of the organization will be serious and sustained," Pillay wrote. "His appointment runs directly counter to long-standing efforts ... to move peacekeeping operations away from previous incidents of serious mismanagement and abusive conduct on a stronger, more professional and more respected footing."

In response to Pillay's criticism of the appointment, Sri Lanka's mission to the United Nations issued a statement this week saying Pillay's demands are "unfair and unethical."

"Nowhere in the world, certainly not in this country, do you convict a person on the basis of allegations; nor do you besmirch a person's reputation by repeating allegations," Sri Lanka's U.N. ambassador Palitha Kohona, told Turtle Bay. "I think it is not only improper but unfair and unjust.

Kohona said his government has formed a committee to investigate allegations of human rights abuses detailed by a Sri Lankan lessons learned panel. "They will investigate every single allegation highlighted in the lessons learned report," said Kohona.

The U.N.'s secretary general's office declined to comment on Pillay's letter. But Martin Nesirky, Ban's chief spokesman, told reporters in a recent press briefing that Ban had no authority to reverse the appointment. "The selection of the members of the group is beyond the secretary general's purview," Nesirky said. "It's a matter for member states."

Human Rights Watch countered that, while the U.N.'s Asian governments are to blame for the appointment, the U.N. chief bears responsibility for fixing it.

"The responsibility for this puzzling appointment lays squarely with the Asia Group, but ultimately Ban Ki-moon established the panel and has to safeguard the reputation and credibility of the United Nations," Philippe Bolopion, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch, told Turtle Bay. "He was not part of the problem, but he need to be part of the solution."

The U.N. General Assembly asked Ban to assemble a senior advisory group to "consider rates of reimbursements" for U.N. peacekeepers. The rate of peacekeeping pay has been a source of mounting resentment among troop-contributing countries because the standard rate has not changed in many years.

The General Assembly mandated that the advisory group be comprised of "five eminent persons of relevant experience" appointed by the secretary general, five representatives from major troop-contributing countries, five representatives from major financial contributors to peacekeeping missions, and one representative for each of the U.N. regional groups.

The panel includes several prominent former U.N. officials, including Louise Frechette of Canada, a former U.N. deputy secretary general, and Jean Marie Guehenno of France, who previously served as the U.N.'s top peacekeeping official. Silva was selected by the Asia group.

In 2008-2009, the Sri Lankan government launched an all-out offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), one of the world's most violent and ruthless insurgencies.

The operation, which centered on a Tamil stronghold in the Vanni region of Sri Lanka, succeeded in wiping out the armed movement in May 2009.

But the operation took a devastating toll on ethnic Tamil civilians, who were largely trapped between the rival forces. As many as 40,000 civilians died, most of them victims of indiscriminate shelling by Sri Lankan government forces, according to a U.N. panel established by the secretary general.

Silva commanded Sri Lanka's 58th division, which was directly involved in the final push to crush the LTTE. The panel does not specifically accuse Silva of engaging in atrocities, but it raises concern about the conduct of his troops.

"It is thus a reasonable conclusion that there is, at the very least, the appearance of a case of international crimes to answer by Mr. Silva," Pillay wrote. "I would this strongly encourage you and senior colleagues to convey as a matter of urgency the organization's request to the Asian Group that this nomination be reviewed.... Should diplomatic engagement fail to bear fruit, further steps may need to be considered."

"Peacekeeping service is a privilege attracting a heavy protection responsibility, rather than amounting to any form of entitlement or political reward, and credibly alleged human rights violations are sufficient basis to justify denial or termination of mission appointment of peacekeeping persons," she added. "The integrity of this principled position would be substantially undercut by the appointment of Mr. Silva."

© FP

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Sri Lanka: Opposition leader extends hand to Rajapaksa

BBC Sinhala
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Sri Lanka's main opposition pledged its support to solve the national question based on the proposals of a war commission appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The United National Party (UNP) will back the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) recommendations despite short comings in the report, says the opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe.

"This report has set up a frame work that helps to develop a Sri Lankan solution and the UNP is ready to support to work within this framework to find a solution to the national question" UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe told journalists in Colombo on Thursday.

Resolve misunderstandings

"If we work within this framework we can go forward to find a solution to the national question with the blessings of the other parties. UNP is ready to go forward" he added.

According to UNP leader, recommendations of the LLRC report also provide diverse ways to resolve misunderstandings and differences between the government and the Tamil National Alliance.

Consecutive main opposition parties alongside Sinhala nationalists have continuously opposed a negotiated political solution to the national question in Sri Lanka whenever proposed by an elected government.

The LLRC report made public on 16 December 2011 has recommended the devolution of power.

"A good-faith effort should be taken to develop a consensus on power devolution, building on what exists – both, for maximum possible devolution to the periphery, as well as power sharing at the centre," it says.

© BBC Sinhala

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Sri Lanka: Army inquiry a delaying tactic

Human Rights Watch
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The Sri Lankan army’s announcement that it had appointed a five-member court of inquiry to investigate allegations that its forces committed serious violations of the laws of war appears to be another government delaying tactic in the face of mounting international pressure, Human Rights Watch said today.

The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva is expected to discuss at its next session a resolution on the lack of accountability for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by government forces and the secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the final months of their armed conflict, which ended in May 2009. The session begins February 27, 2012.

“The Sri Lankan army’s announced inquiry appears to be a transparent ploy to deflect a global push for a genuine international investigation, not a sudden inspiration nearly three years after the war,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This inquiry, coming on the eve of a possible Sri Lanka resolution at the Human Rights Council, looks like yet another cynical and meaningless move.”

Previously the Sri Lankan army had maintained that it bore no responsibility for any civilian deaths in the final months of the fighting. However, reports by a UN Panel of Experts, the US State Department, and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have provided detailed accounts of indiscriminate shelling of civilians and extrajudicial killings by the Sri Lankan armed forces. The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly denounced these efforts, as well as the possible resolution at the Human Rights Council.

The members of the army court of inquiry were appointed by Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya, who was commander of the security forces in the Vanni, the main battle zone of the conflict, during the last few years of the war. Jayasuriya was “actively engaged in the overall military planning and operations in the Vanni,” according to the army’s official website. An inquiry appointed by the commander who oversaw and was a colleague of senior officers who might themselves have been implicated in serious abuses cannot possibly be expected to be an independent and impartial finder of facts, Human Rights Watch said.

Sri Lanka has a long history of establishing commissions of inquiry in the face of public pressure, appointing commission members friendly to the government, and either obstructing or ignoring the findings, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch has long supported a recommendation by the UN Panel of Experts to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to establish an independent international mechanism to investigate violations of international law during the Sri Lankan conflict. A report by the governmental Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) published in December 2011 made strong recommendations on human rights concerns, but almost completely ignored the matter of accountability for government abuses, Human Rights Watch said.

“For the sake of the victims and their families, this court of inquiry needs to be more than just a stunt to prevent a Sri Lanka resolution at the Human Rights Council,” Adams said. “We’ll believe they are serious about accountability when people are charged and tried for serious abuses regardless of rank. Otherwise this body simply fits into a piece with all the other broken promises on accountability that the Sri Lankan government has made in recent years.”

© HRW

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Sri Lanka: Police fire on fuel-cost protest, one dead

By Bharatha Mallawarachi | Associated Press
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Sri Lankan police fired on fishermen protesting a fuel price increase Wednesday, killing one person and wounding four, a witness and a doctor said.

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said police used tear gas to disperse an "unlawful mob" but refused comment on whether police fired guns at the protesters.

Thousands of fishermen were walking in a protest march near the fishing town of Chilaw and clashed with police, who later opened fire at them, said local journalist Jude Samantha who was at the scene in the town 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of the capital, Colombo.

Police tried to block the protesters from entering the Chilaw town and in turn protesters started hurling stones at the police, said Samantha. Police used tear gas and then opened fire.



Dr. Dinusha Jayasinghe said one dead person and four with gunshot wounds were brought to the town hospital. She said one person's condition is critical.

Protests have swept across Sri Lanka after the government increased fuel prices Saturday night. Private bus owners launched a strike Monday, crippling public transportation, and the government increased bus fares as a result.



Since Monday, fishermen from coastal villages and towns have protested, burning tires and blocking roads with their boats to demand fuel prices be reduced.

The government said prices had to be raised since world oil prices have increased. Government spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said the government has arranged fuel subsidies for bus owners, fishermen and taxi owners.

© AP

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SRI LANKA: ONE KILLED IN SHOOTING ON PROTESTING FISHERMEN

Sri Lanka Mirror
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One person was killed and another critically injured when police fired at fishermen in Chilaw who had been demanding a reduction in fuel prices.

The protestors had been marching from the fish market to the heart of the town, when police first used teargas and then live bullets against them.

Police said teargas had to be fired at a protest in Chilaw to disperse the protestors.

© Sri Lanka Mirror

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The tale of a Sri Lankan journalist in exile

By Frances Harrison | International News Safety Institute
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There was no safety training on earth that could have prepared twenty-eight year old Lokeesan for covering the final phase of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

I first met him - this tall, earnest, Tamil man - in rebel territory in northern Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami. He’d grown up surrounded by war, studying by lantern for his A Levels without enough text books, before becoming a newspaper reporter and then graduating to a high profile job working for the pro-rebel news website, Tamilnet, based in Norway.

It was always going to be a risky assignment - Lokeesan’s predecessor was found dead in a ditch after being abducted. But as the Tamil Tiger rebels started to lose territory rapidly in 2009, Lokeesan found himself running for his life with his parents and precious satellite equipment. Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians were hemmed into a tiny patch of territory in northern Sri Lanka, being shelled and bombed on a daily basis.

At first Lokeesan shot graphic images and sent them abroad. Then he began to realise they were too shocking to be used. He switched to black and white, hoping that would be more palatable but he had to live with the reality in colour.

“If Reuters or BBC had been there it would have stopped, but not my organisation,” he says, aware that whatever he wrote was discredited by the Sri Lankan government which automatically dismissed him as a terrorist.

In those months of war Lokeesan would flee from village to village with his parents, dig a bunker, set up a tent and then leave them, retracing his steps to witness and document the aftermath of the latest attack. His mother and father were on tenterhooks the whole time, unable to eat until he returned. He would just recharge his camera equipment with the solar power pack - and his parents would understand he meant to go out again the next day to report. They never ever discussed the risks.

Was there ever a conflict between being a bystander filming and getting involved to pick up the injured, I asked. Lokeesan patiently explained there was no need to worry about missing that poignant scene of a mourning mother or crying injured child. There were so many he could always find another. He didn’t hesitate to stop and help. Sometimes he’d collect material and then when he’d left the scene of carnage, stop and sob.

When we first met, Lokeesan showed me his certificate from a BBC World Service Trust training course he’d attended. I asked if it had been any use for what he had to undergo later. He smiled sweetly and shook his head. The instructors had told him always to check casualty data with official sources like the police and army. In 2009 the Sri Lankan military claimed it was operating a “zero civilian casualty policy”, but Lokeesan was documenting body after body.

Today it’s the children’s corpses he can’t forget. When he reached safety abroad his European colleagues generously chipped in to buy him a new camera. He looked through the lens, thinking to take photos of his own baby son but all he could see was the images of the dead.

Lokeesan needed a new camera because on the day he surrendered to the Sri Lankan army he had to destroy all his equipment to save his life. He was a wanted man. He smashed his camera, his laptop, his Thuraya satellite phone and his Bgan portable Internet dish, burying them under the wet sand. The Bgan he said was particularly indestructible - a credit to its manufacturers who probably never dreamed a customer would want purposefully to destroy their expensive dishes. It was counter intuitive to smash all that gear he’d guarded so carefully. “It felt as if I was killing a part of myself,” he says.

There was one last phone call to his boss in Oslo, who told him to escape with his life.

Lokeesan’s story of escape is hair-raising. He managed to avoid being spotted, partly because of his beard and dishevelled state. Detained in a giant refugee camp, he swapped the order of his names around, hoping to avoid the security forces who were looking for him. It worked for a few days. Then there was an announcement on the camp loudspeaker system. “Lokeesan the reporter, we know you are here,” it said.

It took more than a year and a half to reach safety and there were many more near escapes. In the end, it was another journalist who saved him, a Sinhalese exiled reporter. For Lokeesan as a minority Tamil to trust a member of the major community was something new but he was desperate, having run out of options. Growing up in rebel territory he had never met or talked to a Sinhalese civilian.

Lokeesan’s story is one of those told in a new Norwegian film, “Silenced Voices”, by film maker Beate Arnestad. The first screening in Oslo sold out and had to be moved to a bigger venue. Lokeesan sat in the cinema with hundreds of spectators watching the footage he’d shot in the war, projected onto the large screen. This quiet restrained man broke down, crying, coughing and snuffling into his handkerchief, unable to cope with reliving those scenes. It was extremely distressing to see him collapse. He puts himself through this because he feels it’s his mission now to tell people what happened in Sri Lanka. He struggles to understand why he survived when so many other didn’t but assumes it was so he could tell the world what happened.

Frances Harrison is a former BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka, among other countries, and her book on the end of the civil war there, "Still Counting the Dead" will be published this summer by Portobello Books in London.

© INSI

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US backed resolution guarantees a soft policy towards Sri Lanka

JDS News
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The United States of America has assured that it will support the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

The LLRC cleared the Sri Lankan military of allegations that it deliberately attacked civilians and deprived them of food and medicine as a tactic of war.

US Under Secretary General of State Maria Otero, the most senior US official to visit Sri Lanka since 2005, told journalists in Colombo on the 13th of February that the United States will support a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in March that provides an opportunity for the Government of Sri Lanka to describe what it intends to do to implement the LLRC's recommendations.

While human rights activists were calling for global powers to support a resolution at the 19th session of the UNHRC that convenes on the 27th of February in Geneva for an international investigation against Sri Lanka on war crimes allegations in the war against Tamil Tigers, comments by US Under Secretary General and Assistant Secretary Robert O Blake indicated that US was content with the implementation of the LLRC recommendations.

The full statement follows:

"I am pleased to be here in Colombo for the first time. I've had a series of productive meetings with the government of Sri Lanka, as well as civil society, political leaders, and journalists. President Rajapaksa was kind enough to meet with me and explain his government's vision to advance reconciliation among Sri Lanka's ethnic communities since the end of the conflict. I also had fruitful meetings with the Minister of External Affairs and the Secretary of Defense, among others.

"The United States has long been a friend of Sri Lanka; we were one of the first countries to recognize the LTTE as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997. Since 1956, USAID has provided over $2 billion in assistance in Sri Lanka. This work benefits all Sri Lankans with initiatives on economic growth, agricultural development, environment and natural resources, health, education and training, democracy and governance, community reconciliation and humanitarian assistance. Current assistance is shifting from relief to sustainable development and is focused on two key areas: economic growth for conflict affected regions and strengthened cooperation between the state and an engaged, active civil society.

"Our bilateral relationship with Sri Lanka is multifaceted. While I am the most senior U.S. government official to visit Sri Lanka since Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2005, I know that you have hosted visitors from several U.S. government agencies in recent months. This shows our robust and diverse relationship and strong people-to-people and growing commercial ties.

"During my trip, I had the chance to meet with officials and groups who focus on trafficking in persons, child labor, and human rights. The Government of Sri Lanka has demonstrated improved performance, most notably in the successful prosecution and conviction of traffickers under anti-trafficking legislation, and rejuvenated its interagency task force on this issue. We welcome the opportunity to continue to work with the government to strengthen investigation and prosecution efforts and eradicate the scourge of trafficking in persons.

"Child labor is another area where the Sri Lankan government and NGOs are making a great deal of progress. Today less than two percent of children are engaged in the worst forms of child labor in Sri Lanka. This is a significant achievement, particularly in this region, and we are even more encouraged by the government's plan to entirely eliminate the worst forms of child labor from the country by 2016.

"We also appreciate the work of Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) While it has shortcoming on accountability, the Commission addressed a number of crucial areas of concern to Sri Lankans, and makes substantive recommendations on reconciliation, devolution of authority, de-militarization, rule of law, media freedom, disappearances, and human rights violations and abuses that, if implemented, could contribute to genuine reconciliation and strengthening democratic institutions and practices.

"I discussed the recommendations with the President and he assured me that they were looking to implement the LLRC report in a comprehensive manner. I urged the Sri Lankan Government to share the details of their plans and begin fulfilling the recommendations called for in the report, and to credibly address outstanding issues of accountability. I confirmed the United States will support a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in March that provides an opportunity for the Government of Sri Lanka to describe what it intends to do to implement the LLRC's recommendations and advance reconciliation, as well as address accountability, human rights and democracy concerns.

"Ultimately, the government should address the needs of all communities in Sri Lanka by creating independent mechanisms that support reconciliation, democracy, and accountability for serious human rights abuses. It is critical to ensure the rule of law foster lasting reconciliation. We strongly encourage the Government of Sri Lanka to work with international bodies, including the United Nations, to address these matters. An agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on a lasting political settlement is also critical, and we urge both sides to approach negotiations in the spirit of trust, empathy, and good faith to reach a political solution that is in the best interest of all of Sri Lanka's citizens.

"It is our sincere hope that the Government and people of Sri Lanka will seize this opportunity to build a democratic, tolerant society that will lead to lasting peace and prosperity that leads to a future of hope and dignity for all. We hope that all Sri Lankans see diversity as a strength, not a weakness. Sri Lanka has immense potential. The United States looks forward to continuing to work with you to build on your momentum toward a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Sri Lanka."

© JDS

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