Sri Lanka succeeded in ensuring that a resolution on the country at the Human Rights Council Sessions, which ended on September 28, was dropped. However, country visits by top UN officials could not be prevented. In most cases, requests made to visit the country were turned into invitations.
Thus, just as UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, ended his weeklong visit to Sri Lanka on October 8, flying out on Tuesday morning, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, coincidentally, flew in on a mission of her own.
Nowak is expected to submit a report, including his conclusions and recommendations, to the Human Rights Council. During his visit, Nowak met Government Ministers and officials; the judiciary; the Human Rights Commission; parliamentarians; officers of the Attorney General’s Department; the IGP; and representatives of non-governmental organizations and international organizations. He also visited detention facilities. Sri Lanka succeeded in ensuring that a resolution on the country at the Human Rights Council Sessions, which ended on September 28, was dropped. However, country visits by top UN officials could not be prevented. In most cases, requests made to visit the country were turned into invitations.
Thus, just as UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, ended his weeklong visit to Sri Lanka on October 8, flying out on Tuesday morning, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, coincidentally, flew in on a mission of her own.
Nowak is expected to submit a report, including his conclusions and recommendations, to the Human Rights Council.
During his visit, Nowak met Government Ministers and officials; the judiciary; the Human Rights Commission; parliamentarians; officers of the Attorney General’s Department; the IGP; and representatives of non-governmental organizations and international organizations. He also visited detention facilities.
The government now awaits Nowak’s report with bated breath. Nowak was previously a UN expert on missing persons in the former Yugoslavia, a UN expert on legal questions on enforced disappearances, and a judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also served as a member of the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.
Following on from Nowak’s visit, Arbour who arrived on Tuesday and left yesterday, requested that Sri Lanka become a signatory to the new International Convention for the Protection of All persons from Enforced Disappearances.
“In light of the documented violations of international humanitarian law, Sri Lanka should seriously consider joining the 105 countries which have ratified the Rome Treaty creating the International Criminal Court,” said Arbour at a parting media conference.
Are there plans to haul Sri Lankans before this court for violating international humanitarian law?
For Arbour, the “prevalence of impunity is alarming”, even though she stated that her visit was not a fact-finding mission.
In 1982, a year before the riots broke out, after a soldier was shot dead in the north, furious Sinhalese soldiers went on a rampage—destroying 64 houses, buses, cars, and motorcycles. The Army High Command withdrew the mutinous unit to base and dismissed six soldiers. Some 90 soldiers who deserted in retaliation were sacked and six officers had their commissions withdrawn. That was the discipline then, and the international community kept hounding the Government on human rights violations both during the Northeast war and particularly during the crackdown on the JVP subversion to prevent a state of impunity.
However, it must be stated that policemen several months back who went berserk in Vavuniya killing three students, after the Tigers exploded a bomb, were brought to book and recently indicted. That is what the international community expects of the government.
The Government must realize that with the setting up of the Human Rights Council last year, the issue of human rights has been elevated to a higher status on par with security. It is possible that gross human rights violations by countries could be brought to the notice of the UN Security Council.
Compared to the visit of Allan Rock, John Holmes, and Manfred Nowak, the visit of Louise Arbour was less controversial. Of course, at the parting press conference, Arbour stood her ground that capacity building alone was insufficient to put right Lanka’s human rights record.
“One of the major human rights shortcomings in Sri Lanka is rooted in the absence of reliable and authoritative information on the credible allegations of human rights abuses,” said Ms. Arbour adding, that independent information gathering and public reporting was essential.
Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe was careful to state that Ms. Arbour’s press statement was not a joint one, even though it was tabled at a joint press conference. He took a contrary view and insisted that a physical UN human rights monitoring mission would violate the independence and sovereignty of the country, and, therefore, was not required. He, however, persisted with a request for assistance from the UN in training and capacity building.
But, the biggest warning that Arbour gave the 10-year old local Human Rights Commission was that it may lose its accreditation to the international body governing these institutions.
Contrast this with the joint press conference the Minister had with John Holmes, which was very cordial. The cordiality however ended with the controversial interview given to Reuters. The Government felt that Rock, too, rocked the boat during an international press conference saying there was credible evidence to show military complicity in Karuna cadres abducting under-aged children.
The government subsequently appointed a committee to probe the charges after initially strongly disputing Rock’s claim. In the end, Karuna was packed off, albeit, temporarily.
Arbour reiterated that the UN High Commission would not force itself upon Sri Lanka, and would come only on invitation—even though her request to have a regional monitoring office in Colombo was turned down.
Ms. Arbour observed that her office is not like the UN Security Council, which can enforce its resolutions. There was talk that the Sri Lankan issue was likely to be taken up at the Security Council.
On the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, India, which has been knocking on the Security Council’s door for a permanent seat, would do everything possible to prevent UN intervention here, even though it is not averse to monitoring of human rights in Sri Lanka as violations have a direct fall out at its own end.
Arbour had been keen on visiting Kilinochchi but the government declined in keeping with its consistent policy of depriving the LTTE of gaining any legitimacy through visits by UN officials. In the aftermath of the tsunami, too, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was not allowed to visit Kilinochchi, home to the Tiger headquarters. This was during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s tenure.
It was not long ago, during the previous UNF peace process, that India did not want to give the LTTE the legitimacy it sought during international meetings. India, on several occasions, turned down invitations to send representatives to meetings the LTTE participated in. But, at the Washington preparatory meeting in mid April 2003, where the LTTE was not invited, India sent a representative.
One of the first things Arbour did during her visit here was to meet up with representatives of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) and members of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on Tuesday morning.
Ms. Arbour stated that members of the Commission of Inquiry had intimated to her that State officials had failed to turn up when requested and that the lack of a witness assistance and protection system was a major constraint to their work.
Ms. Arbour also noted that the Commission would gain greater public confidence and support by conducting public hearings.
After meeting Attorney General C.R. De Silva, P.C., and a team of senior State lawyers at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, Ms. Arbour proceeded to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa at 11 a.m. Secretary to the President, Lalith Weeratunga, Foreign Secretary Dr. Palitha Kohona, Secretray Justice, Suhada Gamlath, Attorney General De Silva, Deputy Solicitor General Shavindra Fernando and Ms. Shirani Goonetilleke Director Legal Affairs Secretariat for Coordinating Peace participated at the meeting. (Ms. Goonetilleke along with the Office of the Commissioner of Human Rights arranged Ms Arbour’s itinerary). Responding to the issues raised by Ms Arbour, the President informed the High Commissioner that the public hearings of the Commission would commence soon.
The delay to commence the public hearings has been due to the lack of witness protection legislation. A draft for this law has already been prepared by the Attorney General’s Department based on inputs from various sources including civil society. Ms Arbour was told the Legal Draftsman was putting the final touches to the bill, which is to be referred by the President to the Supreme Court as an Urgent Bill.
The CoI will be completing its mandated one year in a little over a fortnight, and will wind up unless it is extended.
President Rajapaksa had told Ms. Arbour that instead of clashes between the Commission and the IIGEP, he would have preferred it if results were delivered as he has spent more than 100 million rupees of public money and was answerable to the people.
Some wonder whether this was a hint that the commission may not be extended and instead allowed to lapse early November.
As a former federal court judge in Canada, Ms. Arbour also paid a courtesy call on Chief Justice Sarah N. Silva. Justice Secretary Gamlath also participated in that meeting.
In her statement, Arbour said the application of treaties in domestic law has been questioned by the Supreme Court in the Singarasa case, and the proposed legislation (The Nation reported a fortnight back) only partially addressed the issues and risks, confusing further the status of different rights in national law.
On Tuesday after meeting the IIGEP and CoI, Ms Arbour proceeded to Parliament where she met the JVP, JHU, and UNP delegations, and had a one to one meeting with Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Ms. Arbour also discussed several issues with Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
The visiting top UN official who was hosted to dinner by Human Rights Minister Samarasinghe on Tuesday night met him for a formal meeting the following morning. On Wednesday evening at 6:30 p.m. she met Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollogama.
On Friday she flew to Jaffna for a two-hour meeting with various stakeholders. She met Jaffna Security Forces Commander Major General Chandrasiri and subsequently met Jaffna Bishop Thomas Savundranayagam, NGO representatives, and members of civil society. While in Jaffna, Ms Arbour had telephoned Minister Samarasinghe to arrange a meeting with political prisoners at Welikada who had undertaken a fast unto death. The press was kept out of the meeting with prisoners that took place after the noon media conference on Saturday.
While Ms Arbour’s request to visit Kilinochchi was not granted on a matter of policy, President Rajapaksa, on Thursday, had inquired whether she was keen on visiting the East, to which Ms. Arbour replied that it was not possible as she was leaving on Saturday.
Concerning human rights, Ms. Arbour is the most senior UN official to visit Sri Lanka. Internal displacement as a result of the war has led to another human rights issue that is to be addressed by Walter Kälin, Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who will also be visiting Sri Lanka.
Kälin’s mandate is to engage in dialogue and advocacy with Governments and other actors concerning the rights of IDPs, strengthen the international response to internal displacement, and mainstream human rights throughout the UN system. Among other things he has to report annually to the Commission on Human Rights and General Assembly.
On September 19, Kälin told to the HR Council that in order to ensure the full protection of the human rights of internally displaced persons, there should be a strong normative framework, political will, and the capacity to protect. He said the mandate to pursue dialogue with Governments, as well as to mainstream the human rights of internally displaced persons into all relevant parts of the United Nations, was a call to support the strengthening of political will for the protection of the internally displaced and their rights.
(See box story for statistics)
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IDPs: The statistics
According to the UN inter-agency standing committee, in the Trincomalee district, 1143 IDP families (3,778 persons) currently reside in the Kiliveddy transit sites; while 135 IDP families (493 individuals) from the Uppooral area are to be settled soon.
It has been reported that IDPs in Konesapuri have expressed concern about moving to Kiliveddy due to hardships in living conditions and difficulties in food assistance.
While, according to government statistics, the total registered IDP population in the Batticaloa district is 10,300 families (38,153 individuals).
The government has officially announced the return of IDP families to 5 villages in the Chenkalady division on the 18th and 19th October, with 2,523 families (9,158 individuals) scheduled to be resettled over these two days.
The Kilinochchi District Secretariat has reported that 12,517 families (48,512 persons) have been registered as IDPs in the Kilinochchi district since April 2006, while 9,060 families (32,323 persons) have been registered as IDPs in the Mullaitivu district.
In the Mannar district, there are 5,658 IDP families (21,368 individuals) displaced while 3,071 IDP families (10,302 persons) are displaced in Vavuniya district.
Following a Defence Ministry meeting, the Mannar GA states that no resettlement will take place in the Musali DS division before January 2008. 1,123 families have been displaced from the Musali DS division to the Nanaddan and Mannar DS divisions.
Following this announcement, the Mannar humanitarian agencies are planning to relocate the people from current welfare centers of Murunkan church, Nanaddan Rice Mill, and Nanaddan church to new locations.
The current welfare centers were established with limited facilities as a short term measure. With the onset of the rainy season people are to be relocated from low land to high land, in areas with more long term IDP facilities.
The IDP issue is the next big problem the government will have to address before the UN Representative on the subject arrives.
The Nation
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