BTF’s new research paper reasons the urgent need for COI

British Tamils Forum has published a new research paper analysing key five areas ahead of the United Nations Human Rights council’s vote on the proposed US resolution on Sri Lanka. The report further calls for the resolution to be strengthened to initiate a full commission of Inquiry (CoI)

The Executive Summary of the report can be found below and the full report can be downloaded from this link:

The need for an International Independent Investigation in Sri Lanka.

Two resolutions on Sri Lanka, sponsored by the United States of America (USA), were passed and adopted at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March 2012 and March 2013 respectively. The USA is currently in the process of sponsoring a third resolution at the UNHRC session in March 2014. Both adopted resolutions had called on the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to implement the ‘constructive recommendations’ of the Sri Lanka’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

However, Sri Lanka has to date failed to take any meaningful steps to implement these LLRC recommendations.

On close analysis of the past history of Presidential Commissions in Sri Lanka and their success in resolving issues concerning that of the Tamil people in the island of Sri Lanka, this paper strongly attests that no domestic mechanism is capable of delivering justice to the Tamil people who continue to face structural genocide in the post-war scenario.

Both March 2012 and March 2013 UNHRC resolutions on Sri Lanka were inadequate in addressing the Tamil nation’s aspirations and grievances, given the Tamil people are the primary victims and survivors of Sri Lankan mass atrocities committed over nearly four decades. The LLRC report too neglected this aspect.

The research in this paper reveals the true ground reality and urgency of justice for Tamil victims and survivors of the mass atrocities. This paper also finds the GoSL in serious violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL), with a total failure and lack of will to implement recommendations by both the LLRC as well as UNHRC resolutions.

While external actors have focused largely on human rights violations in Sri Lanka, genocide against the Tamil nation has been accelerated by the Sri Lankan State in the mean time.

The LLRC, both UNHRC resolutions and some human rights organization have mentioned militarization of the North as a form of human rights violations. However, all fail to understand that the militarization process in the East is relatively higher than the North and that the militarization process itself of the North and East is in fact being used as a tool to execute structural genocide of the Tamil nation.

Demographic changes, through land-grab, military occupation, Sinhala settlements and sexual abuse on Tamil women, have been instrumental in the ongoing structural genocide of the Tamil people. These demographic changes also aim to dismantle the territorial integrity of the Tamil nation. The government’s strategy of compartmentalizing the Tamil homeland into five sections has been executed with the intent of destroying the Tamil nation, either as a whole or in part.

Furthermore, the State’s intentional targeting of the territorial integrity of the Tamil homeland, economy, unique culture, identity and security and safety of the Tamil people, to eventually eliminate the existence of the Tamil nation from the island of Sri Lanka have been executed under the guise of the ‘world’s largest humanitarian operation’ and ‘post-war development’.

This has made safeguarding the Tamil traditional homeland, culture and identity among the major collective aspirations of the Tamil people as a whole.

This paper not only exposes the ulterior agenda of structural genocide, but reveals and challenges the GoSL’s latest time-buying strategy of mitigating international pressure by introducing South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) discourse ahead of the upcoming 25th UNHRC session.

Post-apartheid South Africa developed TRC for its context. It is important that Sri Lanka finds its own solution for its own context based on credible and factual historical understanding. Arguably, South African leaders acted with moral convictions and their leadership was accepted by the victims and survivors. In contrast, the Sri Lankan State while denying mass atrocities throughout the protracted armed conflict has sunk into triumphalism. And more importantly, despite overwhelming evidence of Sri Lanka’s violations of IHL and IHRL, to date no genuine attempts have been made for criminal accountability, punitive justice or prosecution of perpetrators.

Finally, considering the disturbing developments, this paper calls on all concerned stakeholders to take strong actions to implement the below recommendations.

Recommendations

• Independent international investigation into mass atrocities that took place throughout the armed conflict in the island of Sri Lanka.
• Immediate steps to stop the structural genocide of the Tamil nation, particularly the demographic changes through land-grabbing, military occupation, Sinhala settlements process and sexual violence against Tamil women.
• The permanent presence of a UNHRC mission or formation of an internationally monitored transitional administration in the Tamil homeland. In any such formation, capacity to ensure witness protection, political will and operational independence should be included.
• An adequate mechanism for combating impunity, criminal accountability, punitive justice and prosecution should be created in accordance with international norms and standards.

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