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HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth, in his opening remarks to the Report ,has stressed that “fighting terrorism is central to the human rights cause.� There can be no dispute on this statement, if only it is applied equitably to all parties in question, including governments, which have a priori the supreme responsibility for proper governance of all their citizens.
Good governance is the central issue that is at the root of the ethnic, religious, political and related failures in Sri Lanka.
The
perception of human rights violations, by reference to your assessment
on the Sri Lanka situation, lies in the eyes of the beholders.
To
highlight human rights violations caused by a non-state actor, even in
the absence of evidence, while glossing over worse forms of human
rights abuses by the State cannot, ipso facto, be right, when, in fact,
violations from any source cause palpable terror to the unfortunate
recipients.
To
use the biblical saying, “to cast dirt from one party, while ignoring
the dirt in the eyes of the other� is both unfair, unreasonable and
exhibits distinct bias. One does not have to belong to one party or
another to expect a fair Report on a sensitive subject by a Human
Rights Organisation.
One can expect such a report to be based on
justice and balanced treatment. More so, when human rights violations
have caused enormous misery and bitterness to affected civilians in the
country.
Let me illustrate the foregoing by way of comments to your observations on Sri Lanka:
Political Killings
The
reference in your Report regarding the assassination of the former
Foreign Minister is based on the innuendo that it was carried out by
the LTTE. How is it possible for HRW to come to this conclusion when
even the police investigations have not been not completed and noone
has been taken to the Courts to date?
Is this conclusion not,
therefore, based on propaganda and bias? Besides, a number of suspects
have been released after arrest. One of those released has filed action
against the state for defamation and damages.
On
the other hand, your Report surprisingly fails to make any mention of
the assassination of a Tamil Member of Parliament for Batticaloa, the
late Mr. Pararajasingham, a doughty defender of human rights of the
Tamil people, inside the precincts of a church in the east located
inside a government-controlled area, while attending mass last
Christmas eve. So far the results of police investigations, if any, are
unknown.
The
Report also has no mention of the assaults, disappearances, rape and
killings and counter killings in the northeast in government-controlled
areas since the election of the new President last November. All these
crimes reveal the failure of the due process and equal protection under
the law to citizens by their government.
The clear responsibilities of
the government in such areas due to the involvement of paramilitaries,
contrary to the terms of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), have been
acknowledged both by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and by the
Co-Chairs of the Peace Process.
The
Report gives publicity to numerical violations of the CFA and compares
the LTTE and Government but fails, crucially, to highlight the gross
failure on the part of Government to implement a single one of the
clauses in the CFA affecting the welfare and livelihoods of civilians,
such a withdrawing troops from civilian areas, ever since it was signed
in 2002.
Is this deliberate continued denial of the rights,
opportunities and freedoms of Tamil civilians in the northeast, who
have endured tremendous hardships for over two decades, not an
unquestionable denial of human rights and worthy of mention in your
Report?
Human
rights violations during 2005 have not only been of ethnic origin.
Abuses have also taken a new turn by causing damage to religious places
of Christian worship and assaults on Sinhala Christians in the south.
As far as known, not a single case has been taken to Courts.
But such
occurrences are not reflected in the Report. Political observers are
well aware that this new development is a reflection of the continuing
process to establish a highly centralised Sinhala Buddhist state as
envisaged in the present constitution.
Tsunami
The
failure of the P-TOMS tsunami agreement to share even foreign aid
proves much more than an enunciation of the events that led to its
failure. It clearly establishes that the Sinhala state is not concerned
about good governance for its Tamil citizens, despite their areas being
destroyed by a catastrophic natural disaster.
Child Soldiers
The
continuing occurrence of this problem against the backdrop of the war
in the northeast carried out for over two decades, despite progress
made in recent years, seems to demonstrate that it cannot be wished
away so long as a return to war looms large on the horizon.
It
is also quite disconcerting that, while HRW has shown an understandable
concern about this issue, HRW has totally ignored the other issues
affecting the thousands of war orphaned adn deprived children resulting
from the killing fields of the northeast. Is their plight, its causes
and cures not important?
The Convention on the Rights of the Child and
the Optional Protocol note quite explicitly other issues affecting
children in war, such as humanitarian access and rights to education.
The
Report has not touched at all on other aspects of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, such as sexual exploitation and child labour
issues in the country, but which simply dwarf the child soldier problem
in terms of numbers affected.
The differential treatment and silence on
such vital issues are not well understood, except to point distinctly
to bias.
Key International Players
Reference
has already been made to the call to the Government of Sri Lanka by the
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and the Co-Chairs to halt killings by
paramilitaries operating within government controlled areas in the
northeast.
The responsibilities cast upon both Government and the LTTE
to observe and implement the Ceasefire Agreement and provide a
conducive environment for a peaceful resolution of the conflict are
contained in a recent notification dated 12 January 2006 issued by
the EU Commissioner for External Relations.
This development signifies
a landmark balanced approach towards solving the internal civil
conflict.
ILS
by M. Saravan
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