Sri Lanka: Government Promises, Ground Realities Part 2

At a minimum, a credible domestic accountability process would include: (1) unqualified public commitments to accountability – expressly from the president and the defence ministry, given the power they wield – including for all allegations deemed credible by the panel of experts; (2) establishment of a new investigative body, independent of the attorney-general, military and president, composed of non-political appointees nominated by both the government and opposition parties, and fully empowered and resourced to investigate and prosecute alleged violations; and (3) substantial progress by the government in investigating specific alleged crimes, including all instances of hospital shelling mentioned by either the LLRC or the panel of experts, as well as the many alleged executions or disappearances of individuals who reportedly surrendered to government forces at the end of the war but were killed or are still missing.

Life after the lifting of the emergency

Government claim: The government routinely highlights the August 2011 lifting of the emergency regulations, which had been in force for much of the prior 30 years, as evidence of compliance with international human rights law and normalisation of life after the end of the war. Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa recently claimed: “Even when it comes to the upholding of law and order, the role of the military has been drastically curtailed with the lifting of the emergency regulations. Day-to-day law and order activities have been completely entrusted to the police. The claim that the military is involved in every aspect of day-to-day life in the current context is a gross misrepresentation of reality”.

Reality: In fact, using his authority under the Public Security Ordinance – the same law under which emergency regulations were issued – the president continues to give police powers to the military in all districts of the country. The military’s day-to-day involvement in making decisions about civilians’ political and economic futures, especially in the north and east, is confirmed by Crisis Group’s own field research and reports from local civil society groups. Despite recent promises that the “government is committed to withdrawing the security forces from all aspects of community life”, there is no sign on the ground of that happening.

The defence secretary’s claim about the effect of the lifting of the emergency regulations is particularly ironic given the decision several years ago to place the police department under his own ministry of defence. Indeed, the LLRC took up this point specifically, noting: “The Police Department is a civilian institution which is entrusted with the maintenance of law and order. Therefore, it is desirable that the Police Department be de-linked from the institutions dealing with the armed forces which are responsible for the security of the State”.

More generally, the lifting of the emergency has had little practical effect on life for most Sri Lankans for three reasons: (1) equally draconian and exceptional legislation remains on the books, most notably the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA); (2) the passage of the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution in 2010 and other moves such as placing the attorney general’s department under the direct control of the president have removed all checks on presidential power and abolished any remaining independence of the police, judiciary and human rights commissions; and (3) the present government has few qualms about operating extra-legally, illustrated by the continuance of “high-security zones” without any apparent legal basis and reports of “secret detention centres run by the Sri Lankan military intelligence and paramilitary groups where enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings have allegedly been perpetrated” as recently noted by the UN Committee against Torture. As a prominent commentator has said, many of the LLRC’s recommendations are simply “a reiteration of the basic duty on the part of the Government to implement the existing law and the Constitution”.

Continuing human rights abuses

Government claim: On the question of ongoing human rights abuses, the government’s primary response is to ignore them or to point to its long-awaited National Action Plan for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, which it is presenting to the Human Rights Council this session.

Reality: The National Action Plan is wholly inadequate to deal with the scale and severity of human rights abuses since the end of the war. With no provisions to respond to the culture of impunity that perpetuates violations, the plan is part and parcel of the government’s strategy of denial. Since the Human Rights Council last met, Sri Lankan civil society organisations have documented dozens of extrajudicial killings, abductions, disappearances and acts of torture – carried out throughout the island. Abductions and disappearances were one of the government’s main instruments of counter-insurgency in the final years of the war, targeting Tamils suspected of working with the LTTE, as well as Sinhala and Muslim critics of the government. After coming down in the aftermath of the war, the rate of abductions and disappearances has surged again in the past few months.

Political activists and perceived opponents of the government appear to be targets, such as in the 9 December 2011 disappearance of two activists associated with the dissident faction of the JVP (more sympathetic to the plight of Tamils in the northeast) who had travelled to the northern town of Jaffna to organise a protest against enforced disappearances. Individuals who challenge government abuse are also at risk – as demonstrated by the 11 February 2012 abduction of a Tamil businessman in Colombo just days before the supreme court was due to hear his fundamental rights petition alleging unlawful arrest and detention and torture, stemming from his May 2009 arrest as a suspected LTTE member and 28-month detention. There also have been a number of police shootings and cases of excessive use of force against peaceful protestors in the last eight months, including on 15 February 2012 when the police Special Task Force (STF) killed a fisherman protesting against rising fuel prices in Chilaw.

All of these abuses further erode the rule of law and stifle dissent. Attacks on the media and on human rights defenders, including in the lead up to the current Human Rights Council session, only reinforce fear and distrust – and make it even more difficult for victims to trust law enforcement institutions. The crippling flaws of the National Action Plan are no doubt in part due to the fact that civil society was largely excluded from drafting the final version despite government claims that it was developed through a collaborative process.

The north and east: militarisation, displacement, detention, women’s insecurity

Government claim: The government insists that it is doing everything possible to restore normalcy in the former warzones in the north and east – ending displacement, releasing detainees and reconstructing damaged infrastructure. It also claims to be “committed to withdrawing the security forces from all aspects of community life” and to be “making every effort” to address the needs of women in those areas, who are overrepresented in the population and head tens of thousands of households.

Reality: Conditions for most of the hundreds of thousands of Tamils and Muslims resettled in the Northern Province remain poor, with limited rebuilding and few economic opportunities. Military installations – including large newly built permanent camps – continue to displace thousands.  Nearly 19,000 IDPs remain in camps or transit centres, and more than 110,000 live with host families. Their difficulties are worsened by the heavy military presence: the estimated 150,000 military personnel deployed in the north (the government failed to respond to Crisis Group’s request for the official figure) monitor all activities and military leaders have a veto power on all political and development issues. The military has established its own commercial enterprises and competes with northern farmers and businesses struggling to re-establish themselves. The local civilian administration has been deliberately undermined and stripped of any independence. Levels of fear and mistrust between Tamils and the military, between Tamils and Muslims, and within the Tamil community are dangerously high.

These conditions contribute to the desperate lack of security faced by women in the north and east, as detailed in Crisis Group’s December 2011 report. Crisis Group continues to receive reports from the north and east that women released from “rehabilitation” camps for suspected LTTE members face harassment and sexual abuse from the police and military to whom they must regularly report. While the LLRC report does correctly identify many of the issues contributing to women’s insecurity in the north and east – including that women “feel unsafe in the presence of the armed forces, and in most of the resettled areas such presence is not very reassuring to women” – it largely ignored the problem of sexual violence.

The government claims that fewer than 900 suspected LTTE cadres are still detained without charge or access to lawyers in military-run “rehabilitation centres”. The government still refuses to release the names of those held in its custody, despite this being one of the LLRC’s recommendations in its September 2010 interim report, following the many submissions to the LLRC about missing husbands, sons and daughters, many last seen in military custody. The government’s own special census for the Northern Province reports 2,635 “untraceable” persons in 2009. Given Sri Lanka’s well-documented history of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, there are strong grounds to fear many of the missing are dead. The more than 10,000 “rehabilitated” former detainees who have been released are closely monitored and many are harassed by the military; few have any meaningful economic opportunities. Hundreds more Tamils – some held for years without charge – remain detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act or have now been transferred for “rehabilitation”.
 

A political settlement on devolution and minority rights

Government claim: The government says it is pursuing a “democratic, pragmatic and home grown” approach to the “national question” following a “consensus formula”. It also claims to be pursuing bilateral discussions with Tamil political parties and Muslim representatives in parallel.

Reality: After nearly a year of on-and-off discussions, government negotiators abruptly ended talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in mid-January 2012. The government refuses to meet with the TNA until it nominates representatives to the all-party parliamentary select committee (PSC) the government has established as its preferred method of devising a constitutional reforms to address long-standing grievances of ethnic minorities. The TNA has said it will appoint its nominees once the government abides by its promise to agree first on the basic structure of an agreement with the TNA before beginning talks with other parties. As its critics have charged from the start, the PSC has complicated negotiations with TNA, while allowing the president to avoid committing to any proposal for constitutional reform of his own, despite his having the two-thirds majority in parliament necessary to pass amendments.

In other ways, too, the government shows little willingness to move toward a negotiated political settlement that would devolve meaningful power to the north and east. On 17 January 2012, the Indian Foreign Minister announced that President Rajapaksa had assured him of his “commitment to move towards a political settlement based on the full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, and building on it, so as to achieve meaningful devolution of powers”. Two weeks later, the president denied this was true, saying that only the PSC could decide the issue. Government spokesmen have also  repeatedly stated that the Northern and Eastern Provincial Councils will never be allowed to use the land and police powers formally granted to them in the constitution.

Finally, despite promising for more than two years that elections to the Northern Provincial Council would soon take place, the president has still not announced a date.  In the absence of an elected council, the north is governed by a retired general appointed directly by the president. The increased concentration of power in Colombo and in the president’s own family seems to indicate the government’s real attitude toward sharing power.