[Senate Hearing 111-390]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-390
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SRI LANKA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND
SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 24, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
56-129 WASHINGTON : 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin Republican Leader designee
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
David McKean, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
------------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND
SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
(ii)
?
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr., U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania,
opening statement.............................................. 1
Dietz, Robert, coordinator, Asia Program, Committee to Protect
Journalists, New York, NY...................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Response to question submitted by Senator Richard G. Lugar... 51
Response to question submitted by Senator Robert Menendez.... 52
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening
statement...................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Lunstead, Hon. Jeffrey J., former U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka,
Middlebury, VT................................................. 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Neistat, Dr. Anna, senior researcher, Human Rights Watch,
Washington, DC................................................. 11
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Response to question submitted by Senator Richard G. Lugar... 51
Responses to questions submitted by Senator Robert Menendez.. 53
Risch, Hon. James E., U.S. Senator from Idaho, opening statement. 4
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Fein, Bruce, attorney, Tamils Against Genocide, prepared
statement...................................................... 65
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., U.S. Senator from Vermont, prepared
statement...................................................... 49
Parker, Karen, attorney, prepared statement...................... 59
Sangam, Ilankai Tamil, USA, Inc., Associatiion of Tamils of Sri
Lanka in the USA, Chesterfield, NJ, prepared statement......... 55
Young, Miriam A., coordinator, U.S. NGO Forum on Sri Lanka,
prepared statement............................................. 56
(iii)
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SRI LANKA
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and
South and Central Asian Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:33 p.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Robert P.
Casey, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Casey, Lugar, and Risch.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT P. CASEY, JR.,
U.S. SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA
Senator Casey. This hearing of the Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian
Affairs will now come to order.
Today, the subcommittee meets to examine the ongoing
violence and humanitarian crisis in the island nation of Sri
Lanka, a tragedy overlooked for far too long. The people of Sri
Lanka have suffered for years as a result of the violent
conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and the separatist
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as LTTE, or the
Tamil Tigers.
This hearing will serve a dual purpose. It will assess the
humanitarian crisis exacerbating a conflict that has killed and
displaced countless Sri Lankans and, according to the United
Nations, trapped 215,000 civilians in the north Vanni region of
the country.
In addition, the hearing will examine the prospects for a
political settlement that will both end the war and implement
reforms to end systematic discrimination against the Tamil
population and ensure they are treated as full and equal
citizens of Sri Lanka.
For the thousands of civilians trapped in the Vanni region,
the situation has turned increasingly dire as LTTE leaders find
themselves encircled by the Sri Lankan military. Fighting now
occurs in an increasingly small, densely populated area, even
spilling over into the government-declared safety zone for
Tamil citizens.
The LTTE, a ruthless group, designated as a terrorist
organization by the United States, Sri Lanka, and others,
carries out suicide bombings and hides among the civilian
population, inviting military attacks on these densely
populated areas. Compounding the problem, the LTTE forbids many
civilians, including some local staff working for international
humanitarian organizations, from leaving the region.
I am particularly appalled by the reports of children--
children--being conscripted by the LTTE. The United Nations
Children's Fund, known as UNICEF, their representative in Sri
Lanka recently stated, ``We have clear indications that the
LTTE has intensified forcible recruitment of civilians and that
children as young as 14 years old are now being targeted. These
children are facing immediate danger, and their lives are at
great risk.''
After two decades of fighting the LTTE, the Sri Lankan
military has achieved substantial progress and has made it
clear that it plans to eradicate all remaining remnants of the
Tigers. Indeed, the Sri Lankan Government has rejected recent
calls for an immediate cease-fire, including a plea by
Secretary of State Clinton and U.K. Foreign Secretary Miliband
to institute a temporary no-fire period.
Unfortunately, in its attempt to secure a total victory,
the Sri Lankan military has at times exhibited an appalling
disregard for the lives of noncombatants. I am particularly
concerned by the allegations of Sri Lankan soldiers firing
indiscriminately upon civilian areas as well as inside the safe
zone.
Heavy artillery fire and air strikes are killing innocents
and causing serious damage to hospitals. In a disturbing
admission, Defense Secretary Rajapaksa told the BBC that
hospitals outside the safe zone were legitimate targets. The
few remaining hospitals are undermanned and full of victims.
Almost all access to the region for international
humanitarian aid workers has been cut off, and as a result,
entrapped civilians in the north of the country are being
deprived of basic necessities, such as food and medical care.
Many Tamil youth are at risk of malnutrition, susceptible to
disease, and deprived of education. Humanitarian relief must be
allowed to reach these innocent civilians suffering in the
conflict zone.
Civilians in the north have few good options--stay and face
deprivation of basic needs for survival, try to flee and risk
being shot at by the LTTE, reach a safe zone and come under
assault by government artillery, or leave for a government-
controlled refugee camp, only to find themselves living in
dismal conditions under suspicion of being affiliated with the
LTTE. This is truly an unacceptable situation that must be
remedied as quickly as possible.
Elsewhere in Sri Lanka, we are witnessing the erosion of
basic civil liberties and human rights. Journalists are being
murdered and imprisoned, placing freedom of speech in severe
jeopardy.
In particular, the murder of renowned journalist Lasantha
Wickramatunga in January sent alarms throughout the
International Community. He was Sinhalese, and he dared to
publish articles critical of the government's handling of the
conflict. According to the International Crisis Group, the
professional nature of his murder and the subsequent commando
attack on MTV studios point to the involvement of senior Sri
Lankan Government and military figures.
It is disheartening to hear the Defense Secretary tell the
BBC that, ``Dissent in a time of war is treason.'' The
implications of that statement for Sri Lankan democracy are
chilling.
An end to the violence is necessary, but that alone will
not bring an end to the conflict, nor will it alleviate the
human suffering taking place in the north and throughout Sri
Lanka. While the government frames its war against the LTTE as
a war against terror, there exists a broader ethnic conflict
between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese that has
spanned decades.
Should the war end and the broader Tamil population
continue to face systemic discrimination by, and inadequate
representation in, the Sri Lankan Government, the Tamil Tigers
could once again be driven underground to carry out acts of
terrorism, perpetuating another go-around in this vicious cycle
of violence.
So far there are few indications that a political deal is
imminent. The Government of Sri Lanka will not negotiate
directly with the LTTE, but it does not appear as though the
government has much interest in finding alternative Tamil
interlocutors, nor have the Tamils presented a credible
alternative to the LTTE.
In recent weeks, Members in both Houses of Congress,
including the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that is Senator Kerry and
Senator Lugar, who is with us here today, have voiced their
growing concern about the deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka.
And our witnesses' testimony and questioning that will
follow will undoubtedly highlight the abuses taking place. But
I hope they will also offer thoughtful approaches for the
United States and the International Community to facilitate an
end to the conflict and the beginning of a lasting peace.
We are today honored to be joined by a respected panel of
witnesses, and I will go through each of them very briefly here
today.
Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead served as the United States
Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 2003 to 2006, his final post in a
distinguished career in Foreign Service. Ambassador Lunstead's
deep affection for Sri Lanka and its people were apparent as he
oversaw the United States relief and reconstruction efforts in
Sri Lanka following the devastating tsunami of December 2004.
Since retirement from the Foreign Service, Ambassador
Lunstead has been vocal in raising awareness about the crisis
in Sri Lanka. In January, he brought five former United States
Ambassadors of Sri Lanka together to write a candid letter to
President Rajapaksa that supported his government's fight
against the LTTE, but also expressed concern about the erosion
of the rule of law and democracy in Sri Lanka.
I also note that Ambassador Lunstead holds a Ph.D. from the
esteemed University of Pennsylvania.
Second, Dr. Anna Neistat is a senior researcher at Human
Rights Watch and a specialist in humanitarian crises who has
reported extensively on the tragedy in Sri Lanka. She recently
returned from the island and contributed to an HRW study on
abuses against civilians in the conflict zone. In 2008, she
authored a poignant study on the disappearance and abduction of
people in Sri Lanka, entitled ``Recurring Nightmare.''
In addition to her involvement in Sri Lankan issues, Dr.
Neistat has served as the director of the Human Rights Watch
office in Moscow, where she examined the conflict in Chechnya
and other human rights problems in the former Soviet Union.
Our final witness, Bob Dietz, the Asia Program coordinator
for the Committee to Protect Journalists. Mr. Dietz has
traveled extensively across South Asia, often into hostile and
dangerous environments. He recently returned from Sri Lanka,
where he documented violence and abuses committed against
journalists.
Prior to joining the Committee to Protect Journalists, Mr.
Dietz was an editor for Asia Week magazine and served in the
World Health Organization. We appreciate his presence here to
elaborate on the increasingly dangerous environment in which
Sri Lankan journalists are working.
I would like now to turn to both the ranking member of our
Foreign Relations Committee as well as the ranking member of
our subcommittee, Senators Lugar and Risch, for any opening
statement they might have.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
calling and chairing this committee today.
I will ask that my statement be placed in the record
because you have covered in a very comprehensive and very
thoughtful way each of the points that I would have made if I
had read it in full, namely the humanitarian considerations,
the problems of freedom of the press, the problems of the
country's governance.
I thank you for recognizing the concerns that Senator Kerry
and I have expressed publicly. They were sincere, and we are
pleased at least some recognition has come of this in Sri
Lanka, as well as in the United States.
So I thank you once again for the hearing.
[The prepared statement of Senator Lugar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senator From Indiana
I thank Senator Casey for chairing this hearing on recent
developments in Sri Lanka. After more than 25 years of conflict and
tens of thousands of lives lost, the fight between the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE) and the government has intensified to
a new level of violence. Earlier this month, Senator Kerry and I
jointly expressed concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian
situation in Sri Lanka. Some Sri Lankans trapped by the fighting in the
northern part of the island are being denied freedom of movement,
access to international food aid, and medical assistance.
Another casualty of the fighting has been press freedom. The
Economist magazine reports: ``Journalists have no access to the
battlefront or to the displaced and must depend on information released
by the government or the Tigers.'' Media personnel are being threatened
and physically attacked. Press freedoms are an essential element of
democracy. It is in every nation's best interest to have an independent
press that is free to investigate issues and stories.
Senator Kerry and I urged the Government of Sri Lanka to protect
all of its citizens, facilitate humanitarian access, and conduct swift
and credible investigations into attacks on journalists and other
civilians. The United States has repeatedly asserted that a lasting,
sustainable peace can best be achieved if the Sri Lankan Government
works now to reach a political solution that addresses the aspirations
of all Sri Lankans, including Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims.
I look forward to the insights of our witnesses.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES E. RISCH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO
Senator Risch. Mr. Chairman, very briefly, I also want to
thank you for the hearing.
I think that it is important that the world knows about the
issues here and that the American people, the American
Government, and the U.S. Senate take these issues seriously.
You have articulated them well, and we are all anxious to hear
from the witnesses.
Thank you very much.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much to both of my colleagues
for being here and for their work on this issue.
Before we turn to our witnesses, I would also like to enter
into the formal hearing record a series of statements submitted
to the committee by outside experts and advocacy groups
providing their perspective on recent events in Sri Lanka.
These statements are provided by the following: Bruce Fein,
a former senior Justice Department official; Karen Parker, an
attorney and human rights activist; Miriam Young of the U.S.
NGO Forum on Sri Lanka, and finally, a statement signed by
several Tamil-American communities.
We will now turn to the opening statements from our
witnesses. I would encourage all of our witnesses to keep their
remarks brief and succinct so that we can move to questions.
Accordingly, please limit your oral statement to no more than
10 minutes, if you can do that. I know that is difficult.
But if that requires you to summarize your statement, the
text of your full statement will be included in the hearing
record.
So why don't we start with Ambassador Lunstead? Thank you
very much. The floor is yours, sir.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR
TO SRI LANKA, MIDDLEBURY, VT
Ambassador Lunstead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting
me to speak on Sri Lanka today.
Sri Lanka is at a turning point in its history. Decisions
taken now could determine whether the country will be able to
put its troubled past behind and begin a new era of peace and
prosperity. If Sri Lanka's leaders and people fail to take
advantage of this opportunity, they risk a continuation of the
violence that has long plagued the island.
When I served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka from 2003
to 2006, a cease-fire was in effect between the government and
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE. Sri Lankans and
their friends hoped for a political solution to the ethnic
conflict. The United States and much of the International
Community strongly supported that peace process.
Unfortunately, the process collapsed, for a variety of
reasons. The LTTE withdrew from the political negotiations at
an early point and consistently violated the cease-fire. Sri
Lanka's political leaders were divided and seemed to spend more
time tearing each other down than seeking a way forward on
peace.
It appears that the LTTE decided to return to war, perhaps
hoping to gain ground and return to the negotiations in a
stronger position. That was a fatal miscalculation. The LTTE
manipulated the 2005 Sri Lankan Presidential election to ensure
the victory of President Rajapaksa, then immediately after his
victory began serious violations of the cease-fire agreement.
After a period of restraint, the government responded and
ended the cease-fire. Much to the surprise of most observers,
including myself, the government forces made significant
progress and now appear about to eliminate the LTTE as a
conventional fighting force, though the LTTE will certainly
retain a capability to conduct guerrilla operations.
It is this situation which presents both an opportunity and
a challenge. One short-term and two long-term issues must be
addressed. In the short term, as the fighting intensified and
the area held by the LTTE diminished, the toll on civilians has
increased. Both the LTTE and the government have shown a
callous disregard for civilians.
There is a desperate need for food and medical care. Both
sides have fired into civilian areas. The LTTE has forced
children as young as 14 into its ranks and fired upon civilians
trying to cross into government-controlled territory. Tamil
civilians who manage to flee the conflict area have been forced
into camps by the government.
This situation must be dealt with on an emergency basis.
The government has an obligation to protect its own citizens.
It must do better at preventing collateral damage to civilians
in its military campaign and ensure that food and medical care
reach them. Conditions in the camps are abysmal and must be
improved.
After initial resistance, the government is now allowing
U.N. and other international and local agencies into the camps.
This is an important step. The government must also allow a
competent outside agency, such as the ICRC, to be present when
it screens those entering the camps and to establish a record
of those who are detained. Tamils have a real and legitimate
fear that those taken off by government forces will be abused
and may never be seen again.
The first long-term issue is dealing with the need for
political change. Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate
grievances, which need to be addressed. Sri Lanka's political
system, which centralizes power in Colombo, needs to be changed
to devolve power to local areas. This will allow Tamils and,
indeed, all Sri Lankans to have a greater say in how they are
governed and how they lead their lives.
President Rajapaksa now enjoys great political support. He
is expected to gain even greater power if he calls an election.
He will have an opportunity to use the support to make the
necessary constitutional changes.
The second long-term issue is wider than the ethnic
conflict. It is the growing assault on dissent, which takes
place in a culture of complete impunity. Sri Lanka has
maintained its democracy, despite some rough patches, for over
60 years since independence. The recent murder of prominent
newspaper editor Lasantha Wickramatunga was but the latest in a
series of incidents.
Tamils and Sinhalese suffer alike from these attacks on
basic freedoms. Many Tamils have been abducted and have simply
disappeared. It is sad to say, but it is almost a certainty
that these attacks have been carried out by elements of the
government.
Impunity seems total. No one has been prosecuted for any of
these incidents. No member of the security forces has been
prosecuted for any abuses. Past efforts to break the culture of
impunity have failed.
In 2007, the government invited the International Community
to set up an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons
to observe the work of a government commission of inquiry into
a number of human rights abuses, including the murder of aid
workers. The IIGEP terminated its mission in 2008, reporting
that it had encountered ``an atmosphere of confrontation'' and
``an absence of will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka
to investigate cases with vigor where the conduct of its own
forces has been called into question.''
In January, my five predecessors as U.S. Ambassador to Sri
Lanka and I sent a joint letter to President Rajapaksa,
expressing our dismay about the attack on Wickramatunga and
other incidents. I have attached a copy of that letter to this
statement.
I have focused on the role of the government in this
statement, but not because the abuses by the LTTE are less. The
LTTE has shown a remarkable brutality and willingness to murder
anyone, Tamil or Sinhalese, who dares to disagree with it. If
the LTTE had seriously pursued the peace process from 2001
onward, the situation might be vastly different and better
today.
But the government should be held to a higher standard. It
is, after all, a government. It claims membership in the
International Community and, therefore, must meet international
norms.
The government now faces a choice. It can fail to treat its
Tamil citizens properly, fail to engage seriously in political
reform, and continue to allow human rights to be violated and
dissent to be threatened. If so, unrest will continue, violence
will certainly recur, and the promising future for Sri Lanka,
which has always seemed just out of reach, will recede even
further.
Or it can act immediately to show its Tamil citizens that
they are valued as highly as every other Sri Lankan. It can
make the dramatic changes that will give better governance to
all Sri Lankans and set a standard for responsibility and
accountability, which will diminish human rights violations and
strengthen democracy.
The decisions made now will affect the island for better or
worse for decades to come. What can the United States and
others do? The United States military relationship with Sri
Lanka is almost nil, with military assistance terminated. U.S.
development assistance is relatively small.
However, Sri Lanka will require massive assistance to
rebuild war-devastated areas to meet Sri Lanka's other
developmental needs. The United States could join with other
donors, both bilateral--Japan, the EU, and others--and
multilateral, including the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank.
A powerful and united donors group could insist that
development assistance will flow only if strict conditions are
met. These could include genuine devolution of power, quick
resettlement of displaced persons, and a clear improvement in
the human rights situation.
The United States should also seek close coordination with
India, Sri Lanka's close and large neighbor. With its own large
Tamil population, India has a significant stake in the outcome
in Sri Lanka.
With long experience in these matters, I will not pretend
that meaningful donor coordination and aid conditionality are
easy to accomplish. They are easy to propose, but fiendishly
difficult to do.
But if the United States and other donors made World Bank
and ADB loans conditional on these changes, and if Japan, Sri
Lanka's largest bilateral donor, conditioned its own
assistance, Sri Lanka's friends could have a major impact.
Without such changes, the prospect is for an inevitable
recurrence of the ethnic conflict.
I would like to add one point to that written statement.
Since my participation in this hearing was posted, I have
received about 40 to 50 e-mails an hour from various persons.
Most of these seek to reduce a complex situation to simple
slogans, such as ``the Sri Lankan Government is committing
genocide against Tamils'' on one side, or ``the Sri Lankan
Government must wipe out the terrorist LTTE'' on the other
side. Such simplistic slogans offer little promise to solve
this difficult and important and complex issue.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lunstead follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeffrey J. Lunstead, Former U.S. Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, Middlebury, VT
Thank you for inviting me to speak on Sri Lanka today. Sri Lanka is
at a turning point in its history, and decisions taken now could
determine whether the country will be able to put its troubled past
behind and begin a new era of peace and prosperity. If Sri Lanka's
leaders and people fail to take advantage of this opportunity, they
risk a continuation of the violence that has long plagued the island.
I served as the United States Ambassador to Sri Lanka from mid-2003
until mid-2006, a time when a cease-fire was in effect between the
Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE), and Sri
Lankans and their friends hoped for a political solution to the ethnic
conflict. The United States and much of the international community
strongly supported that peace process. Unfortunately, the process
collapsed, for a variety of reasons. The LTTE withdrew from the
political negotiations at an early point and consistently violated the
cease-fire. Sri Lanka's political leaders were divided and seemed to
spend more time tearing each other down than seeking a way forward on
peace.
It appears that the LTTE decided to return to war, perhaps hoping
to gain ground and return to the negotiations in a stronger position.
That was a fatal miscalculation. The LTTE manipulated the 2005 Sri
Lankan Presidential election to ensure the victory of President
Rajapakse, then immediately after his victory began serious violations
of the cease-fire agreement. After a period of restraint, the
Government responded and ended the cease-fire. Much to the surprise of
most observers, the Government forces made significant progress and now
appear about to eliminate the LTTE as a conventional fighting force--
although the LTTE will certainly retain a capability to conduct
guerrilla operations.
It is this situation which presents both an opportunity and a
challenge. One short-term and two long-term issues must be addressed.
In the short-term, as the fighting intensified and the area held by
the LTTE diminished, the toll on civilians trapped between the two
forces increased. Both the LTTE and the Government have shown a callous
disregard for civilians. There is a desperate need for food and medical
care. Both sides have fired into civilian areas. The LTTE has forced
children as young as 14 into its ranks, and fired upon civilians trying
to cross into Government-controlled territory. Tamil civilians who
managed to flee the conflict area have been forced into camps by the
Government.
This situation must be dealt with on an emergency basis. The
Government has an obligation to protect its own citizens. It must do
better at preventing collateral damage to civilians in its military
campaign, and ensure that food and medical care reach them. Conditions
in the camps are abysmal, and must be improved. After initial
resistance, the Government is now allowing U.N. and other international
and local agencies into the camps. This is an important step. The
Government must also allow a competent outside agency, such as the
ICRC, to be present when it screens those entering the camps, and to
establish a record of those who are detained. Tamils have a real, and
legitimate, fear that those taken off by Government forces will be
abused and may never be seen again.
The first long-term issue is dealing with the need for political
change. Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate grievances which need to be
addressed. Sri Lanka's political system, which centralizes power in
Colombo, needs to be changed to devolve power to local areas. This will
allow Tamils--and indeed all Sri Lankans--to have a greater say in how
they are governed and how they lead their lives. President Rajapakse
now enjoys great political support, and is expected to gain even
greater power if he calls an election. He will have an opportunity to
use this support to make the necessary constitutional changes.
The second long-term issue is wider than the ethnic conflict. It is
the growing assault on dissent, which takes place in a culture of
complete impunity. Sri Lanka
has maintained its democracy, despite some rough patches, for over 60
years since independence. The recent murder of prominent newspaper
editor Lasantha Wickramatunga was but the latest in a series of
incidents. Tamils and Sinhalese suffer alike from these attacks on
basic freedoms. Many Tamils have been abducted and have simply
disappeared, as documented in the State Department's Human Rights
Report. It is sad to say, but it is almost a certainty that these
attacks have been carried out by elements of the Government. Impunity
seems total. No one has been prosecuted for any of these incidents, and
no member of the security forces has been prosecuted for any abuses.
Past efforts to break the culture of impunity have failed. For
instance, the Government in 2007 invited the international community to
set up an ``International Independent Group of Eminent Persons'' (the
IIGEP) to observe the work of a Government Commission of Inquiry into a
number of human rights abuses, including the murder of aid workers. The
IIGEP terminated its mission in 2008, reporting that it had encountered
an ``atmosphere of confrontation'' and an ``absence of will on the part
of the Government of Sri Lanka . . . to investigate cases with vigor,
where the conduct of its own forces has been called into question.'' In
January my five predecessors as U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and I sent
a joint letter to President Rajapakse expressing our dismay at the
attack on Wickramatunga and other incidents. A copy of our letter is
attached.
I have focused on the role of the Government in this statement, but
not because the abuses by the LTTE are less. The LTTE has shown a
remarkable brutality and willingness to murder anyone, Tamil or
Sinhalese, who dares to disagree with it. If the LTTE had seriously
pursued the peace process from 2001 onward, the situation might be
vastly different, and better, today. But the Government should be held
to a higher standard. It claims membership in the international
community, and therefore must meet international norms.
The Government now faces a choice. It can fail to treat its Tamil
citizens properly, fail to engage seriously in political reform, and
continue to allow human rights to be violated and dissent to be
threatened. If so, unrest will continue, violence will certainly recur,
and the promising future which has always seemed just out of reach will
recede even further. Or it can act immediately to show its Tamil
citizens that they are valued as highly as every other Sri Lankan. It
can make the dramatic changes that will give better governance to all
Sri Lankans, and set a standard for responsibility and accountability
which will diminish human rights violations and strengthen democracy.
The decisions made now will affect the island, for better or worse, for
decades to come.
What can the United States and others do? The U.S. military
relationship with Sri Lanka is almost nil, with military assistance
terminated. U.S. development assistance is relatively small. However,
Sri Lanka will require massive assistance to rebuild war-devastated
areas and to meet Sri Lanka's other development needs. The United
States could join with other donors, both bilateral--Japan, the EU, and
others--and multilateral, including the World Bank and the Asian
Development Bank. A powerful and united donors group could insist that
development assistance will flow only if strict conditions are met.
These could include genuine devolution of power, quick resettlement of
displaced persons, and a clear improvement in the human rights
situation. The United States should also seek close coordination with
India, Sri Lanka's close and large neighbor. With its own large Tamil
population, India has a significant stake in the outcome in Sri Lanka.
With long experience in these matters, I will not pretend that
meaningful donor coordination and aid conditionality are easy to
accomplish. They are easy to propose but fiendishly difficult to do. If
the United States and other donors made World Bank and ADB loans
conditional on these changes, and if Japan, Sri Lanka's largest
bilateral donor, conditioned its own assistance, Sri Lanka's friends
could have a major impact. Without such changes, the prospect is for an
inevitable recurrence of the ethnic conflict.
______
January 19, 2009.
His Excellency Mahinda Rajapakse,
President,
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
Dear Mister President: We are all former United States Ambassadors
to Sri Lanka, but we are writing in our personal capacities. Our
service in Sri Lanka stretches for over 15 years, and we have seen good
times and hard times in the country. We all have great respect and
affection for Sri Lanka and its people. We have known you at different
points in your career, and we all acknowledge your love for your
country and your desire to see it at peace. We have all, at different
times and in different ways, made it clear that we believed the goals
and tactics of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were unacceptable,
and that the Government of Sri Lanka was engaged in a difficult but
necessary fight against terrorism. We have all supported and argued for
United States assistance to Sri Lanka in that struggle.
It is for all of these reasons that we are now so upset by
developments in Sri Lanka, the most recent of which was the murder of
Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickramatunga. We fear that, even as Sri
Lanka is enjoying military progress against the LTTE, the foundations
of democracy in the country are under assault. The killing of Mr.
Wickramatunga has prompted this letter, but there have been many
previous incidents in which the rights of individuals and the media
have been violated.
Mr. President, we speak frankly because in our dealings with you we
have always found you to have an open mind and to respect the truth.
Some have suggested that these events have been carried out not by
elements of the Government, but by other forces hoping to embarrass the
Government. We do not find such arguments credible. We are familiar
with your history as a defender of those whose rights were threatened
by the Government. We assume, therefore, that if Government forces are
carrying out these acts, they are acting without your permission and
knowledge. We believe it is imperative that these actions stop, and
that those who have carried them out be prosecuted.
Fighting an unconventional war against a terrorist enemy is a
difficult task, and the sad truth is that it almost always results in
some brutal and illegal acts. This is as true of our country as it is
of Sri Lanka. The important thing is that the country's leadership not
condone these acts, and that an atmosphere is set from the top that
they will not be accepted, and that those who commit them will be held
to account.
We urge you to take steps to reestablish accountability and the
rule of law in Sri Lanka. Investigations have been promised before but
have been futile. At times Government officials have not appeared
diligent, as happened in the investigation of the killing of NGO
workers assisted by the International Eminent Persons Group. It is
crucial that an investigation now not follow that same fruitless path.
It must also be made clear to members of the security forces that
discipline will be enforced and violators will be brought to justice.
Only you can provide the leadership and clear direction that will make
this happen. We have seen before the positive results that such
leadership can have, for example, when the decision to issue receipts
for all detained persons dramatically reduced the number of
disappearances.
Sri Lanka has gone through difficult times, but its democratic
system has always persevered. Neither the LTTE nor assaults by other
radical forces have been able to destroy it. It would be a tragedy if
it were destroyed now, not from without, but from within.
We intend to make this letter public after you have received it.
With our personal best wishes, we remain,
Yours sincerely,
Marion Creekmore,
United States Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, 1989-92.
Teresita Schaffer,
United States Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, 1992-95.
A. Peter Burleigh,
United States Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, 1995-97.
Shaun Donnelly,
United States Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, 1997-2000.
Ashley Wills,
United States Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, 2000-03.
Jeffrey Lunstead,
United States Ambassador
to Sri Lanka, 2003-06.
Senator Casey. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Ms. Neistat.
STATEMENT OF DR. ANNA NEISTAT, SENIOR RESEARCHER, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Neistat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to
testify today on behalf of Human Rights Watch.
Just over a week ago, I returned from Sri Lanka. I would
like to begin this testimony by sharing with you an account of
one of the witnesses that we interviewed there.
``One mortar shell came in close. I heard the whirling
sound. It was dark, so we didn't know where it landed. When I
stuck my head out of the bunker, I saw the mangled body of a
young woman by the entrance. I had never seen that before. I
couldn't believe that it was a person.
``Nothing had been touched when we got out of the bunker in
the morning. There were lots of people in bits and pieces lying
around. My gut reaction was that I don't want to see this, but
I felt that I had to.
``One woman was lying on her back with two infants, one of
whom survived, as I later heard. One baby was hanging from a
nearby tree. Another baby, decapitated, was hanging on the
barbed wire surrounding the playground. Next to the woman lay
her husband, face down.
``Next to the family lay other people. One was severed in
half. I think the other one was as well, but I couldn't look
anymore.''
It seems that the two warring parties in Sri Lanka now are
involved in a perverse competition to demonstrate the greatest
disregard for civilian population. And as a result, civilians
are dying by hundreds. The latest figures we have suggest that
the number of civilian casualties in the northern Vanni region
has now reached 7,000 people, including up to 2,000 deaths.
And as outrageous as those numbers are, they might be just
the beginning. As according to U.N. estimates, there are over
200,000 people now trapped in the northern Vanni region between
the two warring parties.
Having worked in many conflict areas around the world, I
have rarely seen a humanitarian disaster of such scale where
both sides seem to demonstrate such blatant disregard to the
safety and well-being of civilians and which, at the same time,
receive so little international attention.
Two key issues I would like to bring to your attention
today are the abuses against civilians trapped in the Vanni in
the conflict areas and the dire situation of the displaced
persons who manage to cross to the government-controlled areas.
For more details on our findings, I encourage you to look
at our report that we just released and submitted for your
review along with this testimony. Our research established that
during the ongoing fighting in the Vanni, both the Sri Lankan
Armed Forces and the LTTE committed serious violations of
international humanitarian law and are responsible for hundreds
of civilian casualties.
The LTTE has deliberately prevented civilians under its
control from fleeing into the government-controlled areas. We
documented several incidents where LTTE forces fired at fleeing
civilians, killing and injuring dozens. We also documented
cases where LTTE effectively used civilians as human shields to
protect their positions from attack. This is a war crime.
The LTTE has also continued its practice of forcible
recruitment of civilians for untrained combat and labor at the
front lines. That was extremely dangerous for civilians. One of
the witnesses we interviewed said that just recently 25 of her
neighbors died after they were recruited by LTTE to perform
such duties at the front line, such as digging bunkers or
collecting weapons from killed combatants.
The government, in turn, has been exploiting LTTE's grim
practices to justify its own atrocities. Sri Lankan forces have
repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled areas crowded with
displaced persons, causing numerous civilian casualties.
Many of civilian deaths, including the ones described in
the testimony--the witness account that I shared with you at
the very beginning--occurred in the so-called ``safe zone''
declared by the government. It was a 14-square-mile area in
Mullaitivu district. We received several detailed accounts from
people who stayed within the safe zone, and these accounts
suggest that the shelling by Sri Lankan forces killed dozens,
if not hundreds, of people inside there.
There were apparently some LTTE positions, either within or
right outside of the safety zone, that could be legitimately
targeted by the armed forces. However, it does not relieve the
Sri Lankan forces from responsibility to take all physical
precautions to protect civilians, especially in the area where
the government itself encouraged people to move.
Some of the attacks were particularly deadly because the
government used multibarrel rocket launchers, weapons that are
indiscriminate when used in populated areas because they cannot
be targeted with sufficient precision. Particularly outrageous
were numerous attacks on the hospitals. Our report documents
about two dozen of such attacks; hospitals attacked by
artillery shelling and aerial bombardments.
The plight of civilians in Vanni was exacerbated by the
lack of humanitarian access to the region. At this point, there
are very few supplies of food and medical necessities in the
region, and that is largely because the government barred any
international humanitarian agencies--most international
humanitarian agencies from delivering assistance to the region.
And food convoys had to stop because both parties tried to use
them to advance their military positions.
Meanwhile, the situation of more than 30,000 civilians who
managed to cross to the government-controlled areas is also
dire. One of the concerns is the screening procedures. At this
point, no international agency has access to the screening
points, and there are growing reports of people who have gone
missing after being detained at these checkpoints. This is
particularly worrisome, given Sri Lanka's sad record on
enforced disappearances and summary executions.
Upon arrival in the provincial capital, Vavuniya, all
displaced persons without exception are being confined to de
facto internment camps that the government calls ``welfare
centers.'' I have to say that one look at these camps makes it
very clear that the welfare of the inhabitants is the last of
the authorities' concerns.
They are surrounded by barbed wire and machine gun nests and
sandbags, and the civilians inside do not enjoy any freedom of
movement.
They are not allowed out, and their relatives do not have
access to them. There are heart-breaking scenes happening
outside of the camps as relatives are trying to approach their
family members inside the camps.
The hospital in Vavuniya, where hundreds of civilians have
been brought from the fighting area, mirrors the town's
internment camps. When I visited the hospital on February 11,
it was still overcrowded with patients. Patients were lying on
the floors in the hospital corridors, and the hospital clearly
lacked even the most basic supplies, such as bed sheets,
blankets, and change of clothing for the patients.
The hospital was run by the military. There were uniformed
men, uniformed servicemen in all of the hospital wards,
corridors, and the hospital yard. Their main job was to make
sure that nobody has access to the patients from outside and
that the patients have nobody to tell their story to.
Despite the obvious lack of capacity of the hospital, the
hospital personnel was specifically instructed by the
authorities not to approach any international agencies for
help. As a result of this lack of capacity, many of the
patients are being discharged to the camps long before their
wounds have healed. And we documented at least two cases where
this practice led to the deaths of the patients.
I visited all of the hospital wards, and most of the
patients there were in a state of despair, often crying
incessantly, and they were saying that they were simply
unfortunate to have survived.
As one of the patients told me, ``They promised they would
allow us to go back after we get treatment. Now our families
are back there in Vanni, and we have no information about them.
And we are not much better off. People are dying in the
hospital as well. There are no relatives to help us, and there
won't be anybody once we go to camps.
``Why did they bring us here? We could have just as well
died there because there is nobody here to take care of us, to
feed us, and we are likely to die anyway just through more
suffering.''
I would like to conclude by saying that collecting
information about the conflict in Sri Lanka was extremely
difficult because Sri Lankan Government has conducted a cynical
campaign to prevent all independent public coverage of the
conflict, barring human rights organizations and journalists
from the conflict areas in a clear effort to cover its abuses.
Human Rights Watch tried its best to uncover the truth so
that neither the Sri Lankan Government nor the LTTE nor the
International Community could say that they have not known what
happened there. Now we urge concerned governments, including
the Government of the United States, to do all it can to end
the suffering of the civilian population in Sri Lanka.
First, both sides should be pressed to immediately
establish humanitarian corridors to allow the civilian
population to escape the battle zone and to stop committing
violations of international humanitarian law.
Second, the government should be told to end its ban on
humanitarian workers, journalists, and human rights activists
in the Vanni.
And last, the Security Council should hold a special
session to address the humanitarian catastrophe now taking
place and send a message to the government that development
assistance will not be provided to create permanent internment
camps for Sri Lankans, long suffering, displaced.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Neistat follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Anna Neistat, Senior Researcher, Emergencies
Division, Human Rights Watch, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting
Human Rights Watch to testify at this hearing. I will address the most
recent developments on the ground in Sri Lanka and, in particular, the
desperate plight of civilians caught between the two warring parties--
the Government of Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Just over a week ago I returned from Sri Lanka. I have to mention,
first of all, that collecting information about the conflict and the
situation of the internally displaced persons is extremely difficult.
The Sri Lankan Government is conducting a cynical campaign to prevent
all independent public coverage of its military operations and the
plight of civilians caught up in the war. While decrying LTTE abuses,
it has kept out the media and human rights organizations that could
report on them--and on government abuses. It has kept displaced persons
locked up in camps and hospitals. It has traded the well-being of tens
of thousands of Sri Lankan citizens for evading international scrutiny.
It has been trying its best to bury the abuses.
While in the country, however, we managed to collect credible
information about egregious violations by the parties to the conflict,
both of which appear to be engaged in a perverse competition to
demonstrate the greatest disregard for the civilian population. Our
findings are summarized in a 45-page report, ``War on the Displaced:
Sri Lankan Army and LTTE Abuses Against Civilians in the Vanni,'' that
we have just released and submitted for your review along with this
testimony.
As you know, after 25 years, the armed conflict between the Sri
Lankan Government and the LTTE may be nearing its conclusion. This
conflict has over the years claimed some 70 thousand civilian lives,
and has left hundreds of thousands displaced for years and even
decades.
Since the fall of the LTTE's administrative center, Kilinochchi, in
early January 2009, civilian casualties in the northern Vanni region
have skyrocketed. The latest figures received by Human Rights Watch
from independent monitors on the ground suggest that the total number
of civilian casualties has now reached 7,000, including up to 2,000
deaths. Added to this are the dire hardships faced by the displaced--
insufficient food, medical care, and shelter, whether in the combat
zone or government-run internment camps.
Having worked in many conflict areas across the world, I have
rarely seen a humanitarian disaster of such scale, where both sides
demonstrate such shameless disregard to the safety and well-being of
civilians, and which, at the same time, receives so little
international attention. Civilians caught in Sri Lanka's conflict
continue to die as we speak, and immediate action is necessary to stop
this egregious loss of civilian life.
violations of the laws of war by both sides of the conflict
During the ongoing fighting in the Vanni, both the Sri Lankan Armed
Forces and the LTTE have committed serious violations of international
humanitarian law with respect to the conduct of hostilities. The high
civilian casualties of the past months can be directly attributable to
these violations.
The LTTE has been responsible for deploying their forces within
densely populated areas and deliberately firing on civilians to prevent
them from fleeing to safety. There is also evidence that the LTTE has
used civilians as ``human shields.''
The Sri Lankan forces have committed numerous indiscriminate and
perhaps disproportionate attacks consisting of artillery bombardment
and aerial bombing. These include attacks on the government-proclaimed
``safe zones'' and on clearly marked hospitals. Statements by senior
officials indicating that civilians who do not leave LTTE-controlled
areas are subject to attack are indicative of an intent to commit war
crimes.
Violations by the LTTE
The LTTE has deliberately prevented civilians under its effective
control from fleeing to areas away from the fighting, unnecessarily and
unlawfully placing their lives at grave risk. As the LTTE has retreated
in the face of SLA offensive operations, it has forced civilians to
retreat with it, not only prolonging the danger they face, but moving
them further and further away from desperately needed humanitarian
assistance. And as the area that the LTTE controls shrinks, the trapped
civilian population has become concentrated, increasing the risk of
high casualties in the event of attack and placing greater strains on
their living conditions.
Human Rights Watch documented a number of incidents when the LTTE
forces fired at civilians who tried to cross to the government-
controlled areas, killing and injuring dozens. In an illustrative case,
a 35-year-old father of three described how LTTE cadres had shot at
civilians attempting to flee:
When we came to Suthanthirapuram, it was full of dead bodies.
Bodies were lying along the road. Nobody cared about them. They
smelled. We didn't have food for 2 days. We slept in the field.
Some 150 people started out together, but when we tried to
leave, at Suthanthirapuruam, the LTTE tried to stop us. There
was only a narrow path to leave by. The LTTE caught us. There
was fighting, arguments. They were shooting at us. Many people
were injured and killed. It was shocking to see. Only 65 were
in my group when we came out. We were separated from the rest
along the way.
One father was carrying his child on his back. As they were
running from the LTTE, he was holding him by the arms so hard--
in order not to lose him--that he broke both of the child's
arms.
The LTTE practice of forcing civilians to retreat with its forces,
rather than allowing them to flee to safer areas, has meant that LTTE
forces have been increasingly deployed near civilians in violation of
the laws of war. Several cases were reported to Human Rights Watch in
which LTTE forces appeared to be making deliberate use of civilians to
protect their positions from attack--which is considered to be ``human
shielding,'' and constitutes a war crime.
The LTTE has continued to place civilians at serious risk by
forcibly recruiting civilians for untrained military duty and for labor
in combat zones. The LTTE also has a long history of using children
under 18 in their forces, including in armed combat, and the U.N. has
reported that it continues to do so. Since September 2008, the LTTE has
increasingly forced people with no prior military experience to fight
or perform supportive function on the front lines, which has led to
many casualties. One Vanni resident described this practice to Human
Rights Watch: ``The workers were taken to the front line to dig
bunkers, collect weapons from killed cadres and SLA soldiers, and so
on. It was very dangerous for civilians--about 25 of my neighbors were
killed while doing this work. They did not receive any training--the
LTTE cadres fetched them from their homes and the next day brought
their dead bodies back. Every day, many people were crying in my
neighborhood because they lost young children; some even beat up LTTE
cadres when they brought the bodies back.''
Violations by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces
The LTTE's grim practices are being exploited by the government to
justify its own atrocities. High-level officials assert that the ethnic
Tamil population trapped in the war zone can be presumed to be siding
with the LTTE and treated as combatants, effectively sanctioning
violations. Sri Lankan forces have repeatedly and indiscriminately
shelled areas packed with displaced persons, causing numerous civilian
casualties. This includes numerous reported bombardments of a
government declared ``safe zone'' and of the remaining hospitals in the
region.
Concerns of indiscriminate attacks by SLA forces are heightened by
reports that they are using multibarrel rocket launchers. Rockets fired
from multibarrel launchers cannot be targeted with sufficient precision
to be accurate against military targets, and their broad area effect
makes their use incompatible with the laws of war in areas where
civilians or civilian objects (such as schools or hospitals) are
located. The use of such weapons in populated areas is indiscriminate
in violation of international humanitarian law.
Many of the civilian deaths reported in the past month have
occurred in an area that the Sri Lankan Government has declared to be a
``safe zone.'' On January 21, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces unilaterally
declared a 35-square-kilometer ``safe zone'' for civilians north of the
A35 road between the Udayarkattu junction and the Manjal Palam (Yellow
Bridge) in Mullaitivu district. The Sri Lankan Air Force dropped
leaflets appealing to civilians to move into the safe zone as soon as
possible.
During the next days, several thousand people gathered in a large
playground located just north of the A35 in the safe zone. The
playground also functioned as a food distribution center for the local
government agent (GA) and international organizations. Several people
located in or around the GA food distribution center told Human Rights
Watch that, despite the army declaration of a safe zone in the area,
the area was subjected to heavy shelling from SLA positions in the
period January 22-29, which killed and injured hundreds of people.
One shell that struck inside the playground early in the morning on
January 24 killed 7 civilians and injured 15. An eyewitness told Human
Rights Watch:
One mortar shell came in, close. I heard the whirling sound.
It was
dark so we didn't know where it landed. When I stuck my head
out of the bunker, I saw the mangled body of a young woman by
the entrance. I had never seen that before. I couldn't believe
that it was a person.
There was a huge amount of screaming immediately after the
impact. More mortar shells started coming in.
Nothing had been touched when we got out of the bunker in the
morning. There were lots of people in bits and pieces lying
around. My gut reaction was that I don't want to see this, but
I felt that I had to.
One woman was lying on her back with two infants, one of whom
survived, as I later heard. One baby was hanging from a nearby
tree. Another baby, decapitated, was hanging on the barbed wire
surrounding the playground. Next to the woman lay her husband,
face down.
Next to the family lay other people. One was severed in half.
I think the other one was as well, but I couldn't look anymore.
One woman sustained shrapnel injuries to her head. Her brain
was lying on the ground. The LTTE and police that came to take
away the body did not remove the brain from the ground. It was
still lying there when they left.
Several sources told Human Rights Watch that LTTE forces maintained
positions in the safe zone (although about two to four kilometers north
of the playground), from which they fired on SLA positions. And as LTTE
forces retreated, they moved heavy artillery eastward through the
northern part of the safe zone. This by itself cannot be considered a
violation of international humanitarian law, as the safe zones were
declared unilaterally by the Sri Lankan Government and not in agreement
with the LTTE. The SLA was also not prohibited from attacking LTTE
forces inside a safe zone.
At the same time, having declared the area a safe zone for
civilians, the SLA encouraged civilians to go to the area, increasing
the vulnerability of civilians in the event of an attack. By creating
the zone, government forces took on a greater obligation to ensure that
they spared civilians from the effects of attacks. Given this civilian
presence, attacks on valid military targets in the safe zone should
only have been carried out after issuing an effective advance warning
that the area was no longer a zone protected from attack.
Human Rights Watch also documented several SLA attacks outside of
the safe zone which seemed to have been indiscriminate and led to
civilian casualties. For example, one of the witnesses from Vallipunam,
a town just outside the government-declared safe zone, recounted to
Human Rights Watch the SLA shelling of the town on January 19: ``There
were about 40-50 people traveling along the road when the shelling
started. The shelling lasted for about 15 minutes. About 10 shells
landed in the immediate area, but we could hear shells landing further
away as well. I was staying in the bunker during this time and for
another 30 minutes. When I came out of the bunker, people were crying
and shouting. A vehicle had already taken the injured to Vallipunam
school [an IDP center]. One shell had landed in the middle of the road,
however, killing three people who were still lying there when I came
out. The shells were coming from SLA positions, from the southwest. We
could hear them when they came in.''
According to the witness, there were no known LTTE positions in the
vicinity at the time of the attack.
The witness also told Human Rights Watch that seven of his wife's
relatives, including two children--8 and 6 years old--were killed on
February 5 by shelling in Mathalan, an area controlled by the LTTE that
he believes had come under SLA attack. He was concerned that three
other bodies had been found, mangled beyond recognition, and could be
those of relatives he had not heard from.
During the fighting in 2009, the few hospitals that exist in LTTE-
controlled areas have repeatedly come under artillery attack. This has
added immeasurably to the suffering of individuals who have sought help
in medical facilities, already horribly overcrowded and dangerously
short of medical personnel, equipment, and supplies before the attacks.
We gathered information from aid agencies and eyewitnesses on more
than two dozen incidents of artillery shelling or aerial bombardments
on or near hospitals. Hospitals are specially protected under
international humanitarian law. Like other civilian objects, they may
not be targeted. But under the Geneva Conventions, hospitals remain
protected unless they are ``used to commit hostile acts'' that is
outside their humanitarian function. Even then, they are only subject
to attack after a warning has been given setting a reasonable time
limit, and after such warning has gone unheeded. Deliberately attacking
a hospital is a war crime.
Attacks on hospitals in the Vanni (December 15, 2008-February 15, 2009)
Information compiled by Human Rights Watch from interviews with aid
agencies and eyewitnesses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date Hospital Description
------------------------------------------------------------------------
15/12/08........................ Mullaitivu General Shelling: 2
Hospital. patients injured,
damage to ward
and medical
equipment.
17/12/08........................ Vaddakachchi 10 a.m. Aerial
Hospital. bombing hit
refugee
settlement 250-
300 m from the
hospital.
19/12/08........................ Mullaitivu General 11:30 a.m. Five
Hospital. shells hit
hospital causing
damage to wards,
operating
theater, and the
Medical
Superintendent's
HQ: 2 staff
wounded.
20/12/08........................ Mullaitivu General Shells hit inside
Hospital. hospital grounds.
22/12/08........................ Kilinochchi 6:20 a.m. Aerial
General Hospital. bombing hit near
hospital, causing
shrapnel damage.
No injuries
reported.
25/12/08........................ Kilinochchi Shells hit
General Hospital. hospital grounds,
narrowly missing
staff. Damage to
newborn nursing
section,
outpatient
department, and
reception.
30/12/08........................ Kilinochchi 4 p.m. Shells hit
General Hospital. hospital causing
damage to the
building. No
injuries
reported.
08/01/09........................ Tharmapuram 1:20 p.m. Shells
Hospital. hit Tharmapuran
Junction 75 m
from the
hospital, killing
7.
10/01/09........................ PTK Hospital...... 11 p.m. Shells hit
IDP settlement
located behind
PTK hospital.
13/01/09........................ PTK Hospital...... 10 a.m. Hospital
hit by shells: 1
killed, 6
wounded. Patients
fled to the wards
to seek shelter
from the
shelling.
19/01/09........................ Vallipunam Shell landed in
Hospital. hospital yard: 6
people in
outpatient ward
injured.
21/01/09........................ Vallipunam 7 p.m. One shell
Hospital. hit hospital.
22/01/09........................ Vallipunam Morning. Shells
Hospital. hit hospital
compound: killing
5 and injuring
22.
26/01/09........................ UDK Hospital...... Shells hit
hospital: 12
killed, 40
injured.
31/01/09........................ PTK Hospital...... Shrapnel from
shells hit
hospital.
01/02/09........................ PTK Hospital...... Three attacks.
First attack: 1
person injured by
shrapnel inside
the hospital.
Second attack:
one shell hit the
hospital: 1
killed, 4
injured. Third
attack: 1 shell
hit the women and
children ward (no
information on
casualties).
02/02/09........................ PTK Hospital...... One shell hit
hospital: 1 nurse
killed, 10
patients injured.
03/02/09........................ PTK Hospital...... Rocket hit
surgical theatre:
no information on
casualties.
05/02/09........................ Ponnampalam Shelling: 60
Memorial Hospital. casualties inside
and outside the
hospital.
10/02/09........................ Putumattalan (make- Shelling: 16
shift hospital people killed.
for PTK).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The government has sought to justify attacks that have resulted in
high civilian casualties on the grounds that the civilians failed to
heed warnings to flee the areas, and that the LTTE's use of civilians
as shields rendered the LTTE fully responsible for any civilian loss.
humanitarian access
The plight of civilians in Vanni has been exacerbated by the
government's decision in September 2008 to order most humanitarian
agencies out of the region. The government's own efforts to bring in
assistance with a minimal U.N. role have been insufficient. Fighting,
lack of oversight, and the manipulation of the delivery of aid by
government forces and the LITE have all contributed to the continuing
humanitarian crisis.
Scarce information that comes out of Vanni through phone calls or
text messages suggests that the situation gets worse by day, with
civilians lacking water, food, medical supplies, and other necessities.
On February 10, an international agency received information from
its staff, which had relocated to a place along the coast, that the
only supplies that they had left were rice, flour, and oil. They had
run out of water and the nearest water was 1.5 kilometers away. Walking
there was extremely risky as the area was frequently shelled--an
artillery shell had recently landed just 100 meters from the agency's
bunker.
The delivery of humanitarian assistance had been further
complicated because both sides used humanitarian convoys to advance
their military positions, in clear violation of international law.
One individual who joined convoys delivering food supplies on
December 23 and 29 said that Sri Lankan Government troops used the
convoys moving northward to advance closer to LTTE positions. He told
Human Rights Watch that on December 29: ``We got to the last SLA
checkpoint near Oddusuddan from where the ICRC was supposed to
accompany us through no-man's land to the LTTE checkpoint 13 kilometers
south of PTK. As soon as we passed the SLA checkpoint, military
vehicles joined the convoy and followed the convoy on both sides. LTTE
saw it and started firing. The army returned fire and the convoy had to
stop for 1 hour. At this time nobody was injured, but when the same
thing happened to the GA [government] convoy the next day, their driver
was injured in crossfire.''
plight of the internally displaced
The situation of civilians who manage to escape from areas of
active hostilities into government-controlled territory is dire.
Instead of providing the internally displaced with the assistance and
protection they are entitled to under international law, the Sri Lankan
Government continues to violate their fundamental rights.
The government has arbitrarily detained people during screening
procedures; subjected all internally displaced persons, including
entire families, to indefinite confinement in military-controlled
camps; and failed to provide adequate medical and other assistance to
displaced persons. The government has directly restricted the efforts
of relief agencies seeking to meet emergency needs, and has deterred
agencies from offering greater support through policies that the
agencies rightly perceive as unlawful.
The number of newly arrived displaced persons changes daily and is
hard to verify, especially since the government does not share IDP
registration lists with any international agencies. As of February 16,
according to estimates by international agencies working in the area,
there were about 30,700 internally displaced in 12 sites in Vavuniya.
Screening procedures and unknown fate of the detainees
Sri Lankan security forces subject people fleeing from LTTE-
controlled areas to several stages of screening, ostensibly to separate
those affiliated with the LTTE from displaced civilians. While the
government has legitimate security reasons for screening displaced
persons to identify and apprehend LTTE cadres, the screening procedures
need to be transparent and comply with the requirements of
international humanitarian and human rights law. So far, none of these
requirements have been met and dozens of individuals, perhaps many
more, have been detained during the screening process. The fate of such
detainees remains unknown, raising fears of possible enforced
disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
According to several sources, at the Omanthai checkpoint--the main
screening point for displaced persons on the main A9 roadway before
their arrival in camps in Vavuniya--the SLA and the police Criminal
Investigation Department (CID) has separated dozens of men and women
aged 18 to 35, as well as some teenage children, from their families,
allegedly for further questioning. Some have been released within days
and transferred to the IDP camps in Vanunya, but the fate of numerous
others remains unknown.
An international relief worker told Human Rights Watch that on
February 8, 2009, she was approached by about 50 families whose
relatives had been detained at Omanthai checkpoint in previous days.
Neither the families nor the international worker had any information
as to the fate and whereabouts of the detainees. Another relief worker
said: ``One woman in the camp told me that she was crossing the Omantai
checkpoint with her husband and child on February 3. The husband was
detained there, and for a week now she has no information about him.
People like her call us all night long, trying to get information about
their missing relatives.''
At this point, no independent observers are allowed to monitor the
screening process at the Omanthai checkpoint. Efforts of international
agencies, including ICRC and UNICEF (some detainees are children), to
obtain the lists of the detainees and any information about their fate
and location from the Sri Lankan authorities so far have proved futile.
Confinement in internment camps
Upon arrival in Vavuniya, all displaced persons, without exception,
are subjected to indefinite confinement in de facto internment camps,
which the government calls transit sites, ``welfare centers,'' or
``welfare villages.'' Those requiring immediate medical attention are
first taken to the hospital, and then to one of the camps (see below).
Sri Lankan authorities have ignored calls from the international
community to ensure the civilian nature of the camps. The perimeters of
the sites are secured with coils of barbed wire, sandbags, and machine-
gun nests. There is a large military presence inside and around the
camps.
Several sources reported to Human Rights Watch the presence of
plainclothes military intelligence and paramilitaries in the camps. A
U.N. official in Vavuniya told Human Rights Watch that she and
colleagues have seen members of paramilitary groups in different camps.
In particular, local staff members recognized several members of the
People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), a
progovernment Tamil paramilitary organization long implicated in
abuses, present at one of the camps. Military and CID officers
regularly conduct nighttime interrogations inside the camps, summoning
young men and women into their premises.
Displaced persons confined in the camps enjoy no freedom of
movement and are not allowed any contact with the outside world. While
many of the displaced persons have families in Vavuniya, their
relatives have not been allowed to visit them in the camps. Relatives
come to the camp sites, trying to find their family members and
communicate with them through the fence and barbed wire surrounding the
sites, yet they are often chased away by soldiers. The displaced
persons in Vavuniya camps are never allowed to leave the sites on their
own.
A local relief worker told Human Rights Watch that a woman she
spoke with in one of the camps was not even allowed to attend the
funeral of her mother who had succumbed to her wounds at Vavuniya
Hospital. The relief worker said: ``I spoke to one woman in the camp--
she was crying and screaming. It turned out that her elderly mother,
who had been injured and admitted to the hospital, died there on
February 7. The elderly woman's body was given to the son, who lived in
Vavuniya, but her daughter was not allowed to leave the camp even to
attend her mother's funeral. She was in agony because she couldn't pay
respects to her mother.''
Several relief workers working with displaced persons told Human
Rights Watch that many are devastated because they have been separated
from their family members and have no information about their
relatives--those who stayed in the Vanni, those detained at Omanthai,
or even those who may be in Vavuniya but confined in a different camp.
In apparent efforts to demonstrate that they can handle the influx
of displaced persons without assistance from international agencies,
and to prevent any communication between displaced persons and the
outside the world, Sri Lankan authorities have significantly restricted
the access of international relief agencies and local nongovernmental
organizations to the camps. Nor have journalists or human rights groups
been allowed access.
While in early February, realizing that they would not be able to
handle the situation on their own, Sri Lankan authorities allowed
various U.N. agencies and international humanitarian agencies to set up
necessary facilities and provide emergency assistance in the camps, the
agencies do not enjoy unimpeded access to the displaced. The decision
seems to be made on an ad hoc basis by military commanders in charge of
the camps, and as a result, much-needed aid often does not reach the
internally displaced. For example, on February 11, 2009, an
international agency providing assistance and necessary equipment to
the handicapped was not allowed to enter one of the camps. Given the
large number of displaced persons disabled as a result of their
injuries, the access of this agency to the camps is crucial.
Those working in the camps who spoke with Human Rights Watch said
that it was virtually impossible for them to talk to displaced persons
and interview them about their experiences. The military, CID, and
plainclothes paramilitaries were keeping a close watch on any outsiders
in the camp, preventing them from talking to the displaced persons. The
military made it clear to the international organizations that
violating their rules would result in their losing access to the camps,
while local relief workers simply feared for their lives should they
get noticed, especially by the paramilitaries.
International bodies, including the U.N. Secretary General's
representative on internally displaced persons and the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees have repeatedly called upon the Sri Lankan
Government to honor its international legal obligations toward
displaced persons. These pleas, however, seem to have fallen on deaf
ears.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Government is proceeding apace with its
plan to confine all of the internally displaced from Vanni into so-
called ``welfare villages''--while the army conducts the screening,
clears areas in Vanni of remaining LTTE cadres, and demines the area.
The ``welfare villages,'' according to the government's plan, are
supposed to have schools, banks, playgrounds, shops, and other
facilities, yet those living there will not enjoy the right to liberty
or the freedom of movement. Rajiva Wijesinha, the Secretary of the
Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, told the media, ``Of
course, it will not be voluntary--we need to check everyone.''
Originally, the government proposed to keep the displaced persons
in the ``welfare villages'' for up to 3 years, but following the
protests from UNHCR, said it intends to resettle most of the displaced
persons by the end of 2009. The Sri Lankan Government's past record
with regard to the resettlement of persons displaced by armed conflict
does not give cause for optimism that resettlement will happen quickly.
On the contrary, it gives reason to be concerned that the government
will end up interning those placed there indefinitely.
inadequate medical assistance at the vavuniya hospital
The situation of several hundred displaced persons receiving
medical assistance at the Vavuniya Hospital is desperate.
The majority of patients were brought to the hospital on January
28, when ICRC managed to escort 226 wounded civilians requiring urgent
medical assistance, including 51 children, out of the Vanni. Others
were either brought to the hospital earlier, by transport organized by
the Ministry of Health, or sent to the hospital after they managed to
cross to the government side and went through the screening procedures
along with other displaced persons.
While the medical staff in the hospital has been trying to do
everything possible to assist the wounded, the influx of patients has
been far beyond the hospital's capacity.
When Human Rights Watch visited the hospital on February 11, 2009--
after some of the patients had already been discharged to the camps or
transferred to other hospitals--there were still not enough beds for
all the patients, and many of the patients, especially in the male
ward, were lying on the floor in the corridor. The maternity ward was
also overcrowded with no adequate accommodation provided for newborn
babies and their mothers, many of whom were also injured.
Several sources told Human Rights Watch that due to the hospital's
lack of capacity, patients were being discharged--and sent straight to
the camps--long before their injuries were healed, which has already
led to at least two deaths.
Human Rights Watch interviewed two women in the hospital who just
gave birth. Both of them were in despair as they were informed that
they would be discharged and sent to the camp that day. One of the
women had been injured by shelling in the Vanni and had one of her feet
amputated. She gave birth through Cesarean section 4 days earlier and
still could not even independently take care of herself, let alone her
newborn baby. Another woman gave birth to twins a day earlier and was
terrified by the prospect of moving into the camp with her two babies
and no one to help her take care of them.
It was obvious that the hospital lacked even the most basic
necessities. Many of the hospital beds had no bed sheets or blankets,
and a number of patients, including at least two children, told Human
Rights Watch that they did not have a change of clothes.
Despite the obvious lack of capacity to handle all of the wounded
and attend to their needs, the hospital personnel, according to several
independent sources, were instructed by the authorities not to ask for
any assistance from the international agencies, and very few agencies
were allowed access to the hospital.
An international relief worker told Human Rights Watch that her
agency tried to provide assistance to the hospital when the convoy with
226 patients arrived in Vavuniya on January 28, but the hospital did
not allow them to. She said: ``Authorities in the hospital kept telling
us, `Go away, all needs are met.' Medical staff are under a lot of
pressure--they were instructed by the government not to ask for
anything from relief agencies, not to speak about any of the needs, and
not to provide any information. They were supposed to demonstrate that
the government could handle the influx of patients. Now, however, the
situation is so desperate that despite the government orders, medical
staff confidentially approach international agencies, asking for
medical supplies and other assistance.''
The situation of patients is aggravated by the fact that their
relatives--even the ones who were allowed to accompany them from the
Vanni--have not been allowed to stay with them and have been sent to
the camps instead. That has been true even of small children and
severely injured patients who require constant attention and
assistance. No patients were allowed to stay with their families--
rather than in the camp--after their discharge, despite the hospital
staffs' efforts to make such arrangements.
Human Rights Watch visited all of the hospital wards and most of
the patients were in a state of despair, often crying incessantly. One
of the patients told Human Rights Watch: ``They promised they would
allow us to go back after we get treatment. Now our families are back
there, and we have no information about them. And we are not much
better off. People are dying in the hospital as well; there are no
relatives to help us, and there won't be anybody once we go to the
camps. Why did they bring us here? We could have just as well died
there [in Vanni], because there is nobody here to take care of us, to
feed us, and we are likely to die anyway, just through more
suffering.''
The hospital is essentially run by the military and guarded even
more closely than the camps. Uniformed servicemen patrol every ward of
the hospital, the corridors, and the hospital yard. They register all
visitors and watch closely, especially when international relief
workers enter the wards. Attempts to communicate with the patients have
already led to problems for both patients and the people who tried to
talk to them.
For example, a local NGO worker told Human Rights Watch that after
one of his staff members talked to a young woman with a mental disorder
in the hospital, the patient ``had gone missing'' the next day, and the
staff member was approached by the CID and questioned about his
conversations with the patient. Out of fear for his safety, he had to
discontinue his visits to the hospital.
The NGO worker added that he was aware of three cases in which
relatives of the patients ``had gone missing'' after their visits to
the hospital. He also said that, according to the information he
received in the hospital, in early February several men arrived in a
white van to the hospital and abducted the hospital canteen owner
``because he used to go to the wards and talk to the patients.''
The situation in the Vavuniya Hospital raises serious concerns
regarding the safety and well-being of patients not just in this
hospital, but in other hospitals where injured civilians have been
evacuated. After some 600 patients were evacuated from the makeshift
hospital at Putumattalan to Trincomalee by the ICRC on February 10 and
12, initial reports from Trincomalee Hospital suggest that it too has
become militarized and access to the patients is similarly restricted.
recommendations
As a cochair of the Tokyo Donors' Conference and one of Sri Lanka's
key international partners, the United States has the power and the
responsibility to address the current crisis. The United States has in
recent years been outspoken on violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law by both the Sri Lankan Government and
the LTTE. Given the dire needs of the civilian population in the Vanni,
Human Rights Watch urges the Obama administration and Congress to bring
new urgency to its concerns. Specifically, the U.S. Government should
call upon the Sri Lankan authorities to:
Cease all attacks that violate the laws of war, including
artillery bombardment and aerial bombing that does not
discriminate between military targets and civilians; attacks on
hospitals, and attacks using weapons, such as multibarrel
rocket launchers and heavy artillery, that are indiscriminate
when used in or near densely populated civilians populations;
Facilitate, along with the LTTE, the immediate creation of
humanitarian corridors to allow civilians trapped by the
fighting to travel to areas away from the fighting;
Immediately lift the September 2008 order barring
humanitarian agencies from the Vanni conflict area in northern
Sri Lanka and allow humanitarian agencies to return to assist
at-risk individuals and reach all civilians in need; ensure
that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are able to perform
their work without arbitrary government interference;
Allow independent observers, including journalists, access
to conflict zones so that accurate and timely information about
the situation of civilians in such areas is publicly available;
Immediately end the arbitrary and indefinite detention of
civilians displaced by recent fighting at the internment camps
in northern Sri Lanka;
Permit international monitoring of the screening procedures
to prevent arbitrary arrests and ``disappearances'' of the
detained individuals;
Otherwise abide by the United Nations General Principles on
Internal Displacement, including by permitting the freedom of
movement of displaced persons, respecting the right of
displaced persons to return to their homes, and permitting
humanitarian agencies access to displaced persons.
In addition, we call upon the U.S. Government to support a
discussion of the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka at the U.N.
Security Council.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much.
And finally, Mr. Dietz.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT DIETZ, ASIA PROGRAM COORDINATOR, COMMITTEE
TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS, NEW YORK, NY
Mr. Dietz. Thank you, Senators, for the opportunity to
speak here today.
The comments I will be making are based on CPJ's research
over the last 12 years, plus a 10-day trip, which I took to
Colombo from January 21 to February 1 this year. I have also
submitted to the committee a report, which is now available on-
line on our Web site and more fully develops the points that I
make today.
I went to Colombo because Sri Lankan journalists are under
intensive assault. The government has failed to carry out
effective and credible investigations into the killings and
attacks on journalists who question its conduct of war against
Tamil separatists or who criticize the military establishment
in any way.
Three attacks in January targeting the mainstream media
drew the world's attention to the problem, but top journalists
have been killed, attacked, threatened, and harassed since the
government began to pursue its all-out military victory against
the LTTE. Many local and foreign journalists and members of the
diplomatic community firmly believe that the government is
complicit in these attacks.
The aim of my trip in January was to investigate
specifically three attacks. On January 6, the main control room
of Sirasa TV, which is Sri Lanka's largest independent
broadcaster--not a government broadcaster, but the most
influential television station--was ruined when an explosive
device, it was most likely a claymore mine, was detonated at
2:35 in the morning during a raid by 15 to 20 men with black
hoods over their heads.
Two days later, on January 8, Lasantha Wickramatunga, as
you mentioned--the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper
The Sunday Leader--was killed while he was driving to work. He
was attacked by eight men who were riding four motorcycles. The
attack came about 200 yards from a large Sri Lanka Air Force
base. And after the attack, the hooded men rode off in the
direction of the base, according to witnesses at the scene.
Wickramatunga was killed in a particularly brutal way.
According to his brother, who spoke with doctors who treated
him, his right temple was pierced by what was most likely a
metal bar with two separate prongs. There were no bullets used
in the attack or a gun.
And on January 23, another editor, Upali Tennakoon, who
works for the Sinhalese newspaper Rivira, and his wife were
attacked in a similar manner, but not identical to the attack
on Wickramatunga. That couple survived, and they left Sri Lanka
soon after the husband was released from the hospital.
While many consider the government the prime suspect in the
attacks, officials have vehemently denied any responsibility.
The lack of credible investigation into these crimes we see as
in keeping with a long history of impunity for those who attack
journalists in Sri Lanka.
The Rajapaksa government and its predecessors must at least
be held responsible for the impunity that surrounds the attacks
on the journalists. Most of those killings came while President
Rajapaksa served as Prime Minister from April 2004 through the
time he started his 6-year term as President in November 2005
until now.
According to CPJ's records, during President Rajapaksa's
time in high office--as Prime Minister and as President--eight
journalists have died what CPJ considers to be premeditated
murder. No one of these has been investigated--no one of these
cases has been investigated, and no one has been brought to
trial.
The number of dead journalists, I point out, does not
include journalists who were killed in crossfire or accidents
or other events, which journalists frequently lose their lives.
These were acts of premeditated murder, people who were
intentionally killed.
The failure to investigate and the realistic suspicion that
government actors are complicit in the violence to silence the
press points to a pressing need for the International Community
to act. Typical of the government's response to this sort of
criticism was in a phone call with the attorney general, Mohan
Peiris, which I had a few days ago. He dismissed the idea of
impunity for those attacked journalists.
``I can tell you we have a policy of zero tolerance, zero
tolerance,'' he said. ``There is no question of the government
or the attorney general's office accommodating or making
concessions for criminals or criminal activities.'' He did
admit that some cases may have been delayed for lack of
sufficient evidence. These cases have been delayed, in some
cases, for up to 4 or 5 years now.
The attorney general's response is typical of the hard-line
of denial from the government. Other government officials have
said the attacks are part of an anti-government campaign to
discredit the government and do not come from the government
itself.
While I was in Colombo, I spoke with more than 20
journalists, and I also met with officials from three
diplomatic missions, all of whom spoke with me with the
understanding that they would not be sourced or quoted. What
was surprising to me was that many of the journalists with whom
I spoke also did not want to be quoted and used the same
restrictions, and they did so specifically for fear of
retribution from the government.
As a journalist, I am accustomed to following sourcing
restrictions with diplomats, but to have journalists tell me
they did not want to be named was an indicator of just how
intimidated Sri Lanka's media has become.
One aside here before I go to my conclusions. I have spoken
at length about the attacks on Sri Lankan journalists, but I
want to address this other issue, which the panelists also
raised. No reporters have been allowed to travel independently
to the front lines of the conflict with the LTTE.
Charges of misconduct against both sides have gone
uninvestigated by independent journalists. They have had to
resort to depending on second-hand information and for the few
aid groups that are able to still operate in and around the
combat zone.
CPJ calls on both sides, the Government of Sri Lanka and
the LTTE, to allow journalists to assess the risks involved and
to make a personal decision of whether or not they want to
travel and report freely from the front lines about this war,
which has taken so many lives.
As I said at the beginning of my address, the full version
of my report is available online. But let me close quickly with
some of the recommendations at the conclusion of that report.
First, to the International Community, we are calling on
them to engage fully with the Sri Lankan Government,
particularly the President's office, to address what has become
a protracted assault on journalists and media houses.
We are also calling on the International Community to
insist that the government rein in its security forces, which
are believed to be behind not only the spate of attacks in
January of this year, but the assaults on journalists critical
to the government that have been going on since late 2006.
And we want the International Community to point out that
Sri Lanka's international image has been tarnished and insist
that the attacks must be fully investigated by police and the
judiciary, unhindered by government pressure. No matter what
viewpoint the government holds in its attempts to end the
fighting with the LTTE, members of Sri Lanka's civil society
who dare to criticize the government must not be treated as the
enemy.
Specifically to the Government of Sri Lanka, we call on
them to provide adequate protection and security for any
journalist who is threatened. We want to ensure that those
journalists who have fled, and there are many of them, we want
the government to ensure that those journalists who have fled
in fear of their lives or liberty can return home to Sri Lanka
in safety. And we want to ensure an independent, thorough, and
timely investigation of all attacks on journalists.
One more question. It is a small detail, but I feel it is
appropriate to raise in this very open forum. We would like the
government to release the full autopsy report on the death of
Lasantha Wickramatunga. There is a great conflict about the
cause of his death, and we are afraid that the government is
intentionally sitting on the report and holding it back.
And finally, Senators, one request to the U.S. Government.
The American Embassy in Colombo is deeply concerned about these
attacks on journalists and has often acted in their interests.
They have been at the forefront of speaking out on those
issues.
CPJ calls on the State Department to work with the Embassy
to consider ways to offer temporary refuge to Sri Lankan
journalists who decide to flee their country, fearing for their
safety. And we want you to encourage other countries to do the
same.
None of these men and women want to abandon their homeland,
their families, and their careers. But they do deserve some
sort of temporary support from the democracies around the
world.
Thank you for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dietz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Dietz, Asia Program Coordinator, Committee
to Protect Journalists, New York, NY
I wish to thank the chairman, Senator Robert Casey, and other
members for giving the Committee to Protect Journalists the opportunity
to testify here today. The Committee to Protect Journalists is a
nongovernmental organization based in New York. It was founded in 1981
by U.S. journalists who were concerned about the safety of their
colleagues overseas. Funded by individuals, private corporations, and
foundations, the Committee to Protect Journalists accepts no government
funds as it works to defend press freedom and journalists worldwide.
My comments here today are based on CPJ's research, including my
10-day reporting trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka, from January 21 to
February 1, 2009. I have also submitted a longer version of my
presentation to the committee. The report is available on CPJ's Web
site, and I understand the committee will make it available online.
I will make some strong accusations against the Sri Lankan
Government today. Time constraints keep me from giving the supporting
evidence, but the report will fully explain the charges I will make.
I went to Colombo because Sri Lankan journalists are under
intensive assault. The government has failed to carry out effective and
credible investigations into the killings and attacks on journalists
who question its conduct of a war against Tamils separatists, or
criticize the military establishment. Three attacks in January
targeting the mainstream media drew the world's attention to the
problem, but top journalists have been killed, attacked, threatened,
and harassed since the government began to pursue an all-out military
victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in late 2006.
Many local and foreign journalists and members of the diplomatic
community believe the government is complicit in the attacks.
The aim of my trip was to investigate January's three attacks:
On January 6, the main control room of Sirasa TV, Sri
Lanka's largest independent broadcaster, was destroyed when an
explosive device, most likely a claymore mine, was detonated at
2:35 a.m. during a raid by 15 to 20 men.
On January 8, Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor-in-chief of
the independent newspaper The Sunday Leader was killed while
driving to work. He was attacked by eight men riding four
motorcycles. The attack came about 200 yards from a large Sri
Lanka Air Force Base, and after the attack the hooded men rode
off in that direction. Although the report from the judicial
medical officer--Sri Lanka's equivalent of a coroner--was to be
released on February 6, it has not been made public. The next
hearing in Wickramatunga's case is on March 19.
On January 23, Upali Tennakoon, an editor at the Sinhalese
newspaper Rivira, and his wife, were attacked in a manner
similar to the attack on Wickrematunga. In this case there were
four men on motorcycles. The couple left Sri Lanka soon after
Tennakoon was released from hospital.
In all three attacks there have been no credible investigations,
minus the coroner's inquest into Wickramatunga's death. While many
consider the government the prime suspect in the attacks, officials
have vehemently denied any responsibility.
The lack of reliable investigation into these crimes is in keeping
with a long history of impunity for those who attack journalists in Sri
Lanka. CPJ counts 10 journalists killed by premeditated murder since
1999, with no prosecutions or convictions. The Rajapaksa government and
its predecessors must at least be held responsible for the impunity
that surrounds attacks on journalists.
Most of the killings came while Rajapaksa served as Prime Minister
from April 2004, through the time he started his 6-year term as
President in November 2005, until now. According to CPJ's records,
during his time in high office in Sri Lanka, eight journalists have
died of what CPJ considers to be premeditated murder. No one has been
brought to trial in any of these cases. The number of dead does not
include journalists killed in crossfire or other events. The people we
are talking about were intentionally killed.
With a failure to investigate and a realistic suspicion that
government actors are complicit in the violence against journalists,
the time has come for the international community to act.
In a phone call with CPJ, Attorney General Mohan Peiris dismissed
the idea of impunity for those who attack journalists: On February 20
he said, ``I can tell you we have a policy of zero tolerance; zero
tolerance. There is no question of the government or the attorney
general's office accommodating or making concessions for criminals or
criminal activities.'' Some cases may have been delayed for lack of
sufficient evidence, he said.
The attorney general's response is typical of the hard-line of
denial from the government. Other officials have said that the attacks
are part of an antigovernment campaign to discredit the Rajapaksa
administration.
While I was in Colombo I spoke with more than 20 journalists. Many
of them work in what is considered the ``nongovernment'' press, but
several wrote for newspapers seen as ``progovernment.'' I also met with
officials from three diplomatic missions, all of whom spoke with me on
the understanding there would be no attribution of their remarks.
Surprisingly, many of the journalists I spoke with also did not want to
be quoted, for fear of retribution from the government. As a
journalist, I'm accustomed to following sourcing restrictions with
diplomats, but to have journalists tell me they did not want to be
named was an indicator of just how intimidated Sri Lanka's media have
become.
I have spoken at length about the attacks on Sri Lankan
journalists, but I must address one other issue: No foreign or Sri
Lankan reporters have recently been allowed to travel independently to
the frontlines of the conflict with the LTTE. Charges of misconduct
against both sides have gone uninvestigated by independent journalists.
They have had to depend on secondhand information from both sides of
the conflict and from the few aid groups that are still able to operate
in and around the combat zone. CPJ calls on both sides to allow all
journalists to personally assess the risks involved and to travel and
report freely from the frontlines of this war, which has taken so many
lives.
As I said at the beginning of my address, the full version of my
report is available online, but let me close quickly with some of the
recommendations at its conclusion:
To the international community:
Engage with the Sri Lankan Government, particularly the
President's office, to address what has become a protracted
assault on journalists and media houses.
Insist that the government rein in its security forces,
which are believed to be behind not only the spate of attacks
in January of this year, but the assaults on journalists
critical of the government that increased in late 2006.
Point out that Sri Lanka's international image has been
tarnished, and insist that attacks must be fully investigated
by police and the judiciary, unhindered by government pressure.
No matter what viewpoint the government holds in its attempts
to end the fighting with the LTTE, members of Sri Lanka's civil
society who dare to criticize the government must not be
treated as the enemy.
To the Government of Sri Lanka:
Provide adequate protection and security for any journalist
who is threatened.
Ensure that those journalists who have fled in fear of their
lives or liberty can return home to Sri Lanka in safety.
Ensure an independent, thorough, and timely investigation of
all attacks on journalists.
Release the full autopsy report on Lasantha Wickramatunga.
To the U.S. Government:
The American Embassy in Colombo is deeply concerned about
these attacks on journalists and has often acted in their
interest. CPJ calls on the State Department to work with the
Embassy to consider ways to offer temporary refuge to Sri
Lankan journalists who decide to flee their country fearing for
their safety, and to encourage other countries to do the same.
None of these men and women want to abandon their homeland,
their families, and their careers, but they deserve some sort
of temporary refuge and support.
______
Failure to Investigate: Journalists Under Attack in Sri Lanka
(By Bob Dietz/Asia Program Coordinator)
colombo, sri lanka
Sri Lanka's journalists are under intensive assault. Authorities
have failed to carry out effective and credible investigations into the
killing of journalists who question the government's conduct of a war
against Tamil separatists or criticize the military establishment.
Three attacks in January targeting the mainstream media drew the
world's attention to the problem, but top journalists have been killed,
attacked, threatened, and harassed since the government began to pursue
an all-out military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) in late 2006. Many local and foreign journalists and members of
the diplomatic community believe the government is complicit in the
attacks.
The lack of credible investigations into these crimes is in keeping
with a long history of impunity for those who attack journalists in Sri
Lanka. With a failure to investigate and a realistic suspicion that
government actors are complicit in the violence against journalists,
the time has come for the international community to act.
three attacks
On January 6, on a quiet road on the outskirts of Colombo, the
country's main independently owned TV station, Sirasa TV, was raided at
2:05 a.m. by 15 to 20 masked armed men working with military precision.
At 2:35:31 they detonated an explosion, possibly a claymore mine, a
military-style antipersonnel mine set off by an electrical charge
through wires leading to the device. The room's two synchronized clocks
both stopped at the time of the explosion. The attackers fired the
weapon after stringing the detonating wire about 200 yards (183 meters)
from the control room through the station's corridors to the driveway
outside the station's main front door, according to Sirasa staff.
Staff shied away from describing the weapon specifically to CPJ
after one of them had identified it as a claymore in an internationally
broadcast interview with CNN on the morning of the attack. Defense
Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa denounced that staffer as a ``terrorist''
during a January 7 interview with the government-run Independent
Television Network (ITN). Other knowledgeable sources with military
experience who visited the station told CPJ that the damage was
consistent with that of a claymore. The explosion wiped out the
recently upgraded main control room that kept the broadcaster's three
TV channels and four radio stations on the air. At 6 a.m. on the day of
the full attack, Sirasa was broadcasting live shots of the wreckage to
early morning viewers--staff had patched together some of the old
analog broadcasting equipment.
Claymores are regularly used by both sides in the country's civil
war, the government and the LTTE, but the government has denied that
the weapon was a claymore mine and strongly denied involvement in the
attack; the reaction has been interpreted by critics as indicative of
the government's connection.
Defense Secretary Rajapaksa's denial came in the two and a half
hour television interview with ITN on January 16. In a translation of
the transcript supplied to CPJ by a human rights organization that
asked CPJ not to be identified, he accused the owners of Sirasa of
carrying out the attack as part of an insurance fraud scheme. He also
said the government is investigating the incident.
The second January attack came at around 10 a.m. on January 10,
when the editor-in-chief of The Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunga,
was killed in his car on his way to work on a busy street in a mixed
suburban and semi-industrial suburb of Colombo. According to his
brother Lal Wickramatunga, chairman of the paper's parent company,
Leader Publications, the editor had been receiving anonymous death
threats by phone for months. Lasantha Wickramatunga's wife, Sonali
Samarasinghe-Wickramatunga, told the CBC that they had been followed
earlier in the morning by two men on a motorcycle as they ran errands,
and that threats had been on the rise in recent days. Phone calls and
text messages came in threatening to kill him if he did not stop
criticizing the government. Samarasinghe-Wickramatunga eventually left
Sri Lanka after her husband's death. She has asked that her location
not be revealed. The couple had married about two weeks before the
attack.
Wickramatunga was killed by a hit squad of eight helmeted men on
four motorcycles, according to local newspaper interviews with
witnesses at the scene of the crime. He died in the hospital a few
hours later. The attack happened about 200 yards (183 meters) from a
checkpoint at the large Ratmalana Air Base, but a bend in the road
would have kept the attack out of the sight of soldiers maiming that
post. Nearby shop owners who became aware of the attack after it
started told CPJ that the motorcycle-riding attackers rode off in the
direction of the checkpoint, adding to the suspicion of some sort of
official involvement.
The shop owners said they did not hear gunfire on the morning of
the killing, and police told reporters they did not find shell casings.
On the day of the murder, staffers at Wickramatunga's paper told CPJ by
phone that the men had used pistols with silencers, which CPJ reported.
We also reported that the car's windows had been smashed, apparently
with a heavy object. With no coroner's report, there is no official
explanation for the cause of death. But reliable sources are emerging
who say the attackers may have used a different murder weapon.
Wickramatunga's brother Lal spoke with the doctor who treated him
before he died in Colombo's Kalubowila Hospital. The same doctor also
took part in the autopsy, Lal says, though he was not the judicial
medical officer (JMO) the Sri Lankan equivalent of a coroner. That
doctor told him there was neither a bullet nor an exit wound in his
brother's skull. There was only an entry wound on his right temple,
caused by a weapon that crushed its way through the skull and left two
closely spaced punctures. Sonali Samarasinghe-Wickramatunga described a
similar wound to the CBC.
Lal said he saw the magistrate's order describing the cause of
death, and it said there had been a gunshot injury to the brain. He
said he thinks the coroner's report has not been released because of
the discrepancy in the description of the cause of death. He also said
a police forensics expert found no chemical traces of a weapon being
fired in the car, or shell casings at the scene. Two diplomatic sources
in Colombo told CPJ that Wickramatunga's right temple had been crushed
and that there was no bullet found inside the victim's brain.
The coroner's report was scheduled to be released on February 5.
The local press later reported that the release date had been moved up
to February 16, but it has yet to appear. Police told the media that
they are waiting for the government to release the account, which, in
their words, ``would contain the scientific evidence'' they need to
proceed. CPJ has received the same formulaic responses as it has
continued to contact the police. ``The belief here is the JMO's report
is being tampered with,'' one journalist told CPJ by e-mail when asked
for an update.
The next hearing in Wickramatunga's case is scheduled for March 19
at Colombo's Mount Lavinia Magistrate's Courts. The JMO's report could
be released then, along with the report of the government analyst who
determines whether a crime has been committed and how to proceed with
the case. Until then, all records are closed to the public.
On January 29, CPJ traced Wickramatunga's route from his home to
his office at The Leader, and found that there are many quieter spots
than the main road on a busy morning near a military installation where
he could have been killed. The route to the paper passes many factories
with high walls or fences buildings on lightly traveled roads. There is
little or no pedestrian traffic in much of the area.
CPJ went to the site of the attack around the same time of day it
had taken place three weeks earlier. The road was bustling with
traffic. Shop owners pointed out the spot where the car was left
standing after the four motorcycles had forced Wickramatunga's car to
the side of the road, straddling a marked street crossing. When CPJ
visited the workplaces of the two men who, according to media reports,
had testified at the coroner's inquest, their employers said they had
stopped showing up, and they did not know what had happened to them. It
is hard to tell whether they were telling the truth or protecting the
witnesses' identities for fear of retribution from the killers.
The third January attack came at around 6:40 a.m. on January 23,
according to Upali Tennakoon, editor of the Sinhala-language, pro-
government weekly Rivira and his wife, Dhammika. The couple was driving
to his office when motorcyclists forced their car to stop and smashed
its window. One attacker used a metal bar with a single sharp point to
hit Tennakoon in the face and in his hands when he put them up to
defend himself, he said. Both hands received puncture wounds. Another
attacker reached into the car and stabbed at him with a knife, but only
nicked Tennakoon's stomach. His wife fought back too, and threw her
body over her husband to protect him, the couple said. The attackers
fled. On January 27, while Tennakoon was still in Colombo's General
Hospital, the couple told CPJ they were mystified by the attack.
Tennakoon said he did not know the men--this time there were four
on two motorcycles, all wearing helmets. Tennakoon's wife said they
used one of two wooden poles they were carrying to break the window of
the car and the pointed metal bar to attack her husband. The pointed
bar, she said, was somewhere between 2 and 3 feet (60-90 centimeters)
long. They aimed for his head and neck, she said.
Tennakoon and his wife said they were aware of no further
investigation beyond the police questioning them about the incident. To
date, there have been no arrests or announcements made in Tennakoon's
case. The government has offered a 1 million rupee reward (US$8,800)
for information leading to an arrest. Fearing for their safety,
Tennakoon and his wife went into hiding after leaving the hospital.
Soon after, they left Sri Lanka and are now living in another country.
government's response
The government has strongly denounced the attacks. Chief government
spokesman and Minister of Mass Media and Information Anura
Priyadarshana Yapa and Minister of Mass Media Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena
told Colombo newspapers there was a ``massive conspiracy'' to discredit
the government by destabilizing the country with attacks on prominent
figures and a ``comprehensive inquiry'' would be carried out to find
the attackers in all three January cases. The comprehensive inquiry has
not happened and the police report little movement in the cases, a
pattern that has been seen in past killings, assaults, and attacks on
media facilities.
On January 27, President Mahinda Rajapaksa met with the editors of
mainstream newspapers and promised a thorough investigation of all the
attacks. He also said a breakthrough was coming in Wickramatunga's
case. Two days later, police announced the arrest of two drivers of
three-wheeled motorized cabs. According to newspaper reports, one of
the drivers was found with Wickramatunga's cell phone, the other was
accused of selling it to him. The two drivers remain in detention. A
few days after that, the police told the media that they had found a
motorcycle ditched in a canal that they suspect might be one that was
used by Wickramatunga's attackers. They have not released any more
information.
When CPJ tried to contact the inspector general of police, Jayantha
Wickramaratna, his office said they had no comment to make about any of
the cases. The spokesman's office for the superintendent of police said
its statements were all a matter of public record and that it had
nothing more to add. The Ministry of Defense told CPJ that its
positions on the killings and attacks on journalists are part of the
public record, and available on the ministry's Web site.
With the help of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington, CPJ spoke by
telephone from New York to Attorney General Mohan Peiris in Colombo on
February 20 and with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on February
23. We asked Peiris about the delay in releasing the JMO's report in
Wickramatunga's case and of any movement in the investigations of the
Sirasa and Tennakoon attacks. Peiris said that investigations are
ongoing in all the cases, and said that arrests have been made.
``Our position is that the government is very, very keen to ensure
the perpetrators are brought to book,'' Peiris said. ``There has
certainly not been an ebb in our enthusiasm to do so.'' He said the
cases were proceeding slowly because the facts ``have to be verified
perfectly.''
Foreign Minister Bogollagama responded in a similar manner. He
discussed all three cases individually and in depth. Every aspect of
the attack on Sirasa is under investigation, he said, and given that
the attack was not a ``novice operation,'' and to avoid bringing
``half-baked cases before court,'' the government is proceeding very
deliberately. ``I'm confident very soon that we will have the evidence
that is warranted in order to sustain a prosecution against the
perpetrators of this crime,'' he said.
The Wickramatunga case is also being pursued, Bogollagama said.
Investigators ``are taking their time because we don't want fingers
pointed at the government in terms of failing to conduct a fair
investigation or to conduct a proper trial,'' he said. ``To get to that
stage we must proceed step by step.''
In Tennakoon's case, the last attack in January, Minister
Bogollagama saw the culmination of a string of events designed to
discredit the government--a ``sinister group'' working to ensure that
``the finger of accusation is pointed at the government in order to
sustain accusations that there is no media freedom in Sri Lanka,'' he
said. ``That is why we are taking the time to go after a proper
investigation.''
historical precedent undercuts denials
The government's responses and the arrests in Wickramatunga's case
are dismissed by the non-state press as part of an arrogant, blatant
cover-up. One senior editor sardonically told CPJ that there was no
need for a government investigation into the Sirasa bombing,
Wickramatunga's killing, or the attack on Tennakoon. ``Why should they
investigate?'' the editor asked. ``They already know who did it.'' The
editor, a long-time newspaperman, asked that his name not be used for
fear of retribution from the government.
In addition to journalists outside the pro-government media,
diplomats also reject the government's denial of involvement. On
January 19, six former U.S. ambassadors to Sri Lanka wrote an open
letter to President Rajapaksa:
Mr. President, we speak frankly because in our dealings with
you we have always found you to have an open mind and to
respect the truth. Some have suggested that these events have
been carried out not by elements of the Government, but by
other forces hoping to embarrass the Government. We do not find
such arguments credible . . . We believe it is imperative that
these actions stop, and that those who have carried them out be
prosecuted.
CPJ counts 10 journalists killed by premeditated murder since 1999,
with no prosecutions or convictions. The Rajapaksa government and its
predecessors must at least be held responsible for the impunity that
surrounds attacks on journalists. Most of these killings came while
Rajapaksa served as prime minister from April 2004 until he started his
six-year term as president in November 2005 until now. According to
CPJ's records, since Rajapaksa took high office in Sri Lanka, eight
journalists have died of what CPJ considers to be premeditated murder.
No one has been brought to trial in any of these cases, according to
CPJ research.
Most of those killed were Tamils. And, according to Ananth
Palakidnar, a former president of a journalists' organization called
the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance, about 20 to 25 other Tamil
journalists have fled the country since the killing of Sivaram Nadesan,
who wrote a defense column under the pen name Taraki for the Sunday
Times. In April 2005 he was abducted in Colombo; his body was found
near the Parliament building the next day.
In his February 20 phone call with CPJ, Attorney General Peiris
dismissed the idea of impunity for those who attack journalists: ``I
can tell you we have a policy of zero tolerance, zero tolerance,'' he
said. ``There is no question of the government or the attorney
general's office accommodating or making concessions for criminals or
criminal activities.'' Some cases may have been delayed for lack of
sufficient evidence, he said.
January's assaults are part of a broader pattern against critics of
the government, Tamil, Sinhalese, or Muslim. In a string of online
postings, the Defense Ministry's Web site has charged specific
journalists with ``treachery.'' Defense Secretary Rajapaksa uses the
government-run television and radio stations to denounce journalists by
name, and dismisses allegations that the government is behind the
attacks. In June 2008, with the government's campaign of assaults,
harassment, and arrests of journalists in full swing, a chilling
statement appeared on the ministry's Web site:
Whoever attempts to reduce the public support to the military
by making false allegations and directing baseless criticism at
armed forces personnel is supporting the terrorist organization
that continuously murder citizens of Sri Lanka. The Ministry
will continue to expose these traitors and their sinister
motives and does not consider such exposure as a threat to
media freedom. Those who commit such treachery should identify
themselves with the LTTE rather than showing themselves as
crusaders of Media Freedom.
The ministry's Web site accused specific media outlets of such
behavior, and all have since come under violent attack: Sirasa TV; The
Sunday Leader, The Morning Leader, and Irudina (the Sinhala-language
Sunday weekly of The Leader group). After The Daily Mirror wrote a
series of articles on the Tamil refugee situation, the defense
secretary called the paper's editor, Champika Liyanarachchi, in April
2007 and told her neither she nor the reporter who wrote the articles
should expect government protection if they are attacked, which CPJ
reported. The Sunday Times' defense columnist, Iqbal Athas, has stopped
writing and fled and returned to Sri Lanka several times after numerous
threats and harassments, he told CPJ. The Times' Tamil columnist J.S.
Tissainayagam has been jailed on state security charges since March
2008--he told the court in his pretrial appearances that other
prisoners were beaten in front of him and that he had agreed to sign a
false confession. He was not beaten because he has detached retinas in
both eyes and his captors feared they would blind him, according to his
wife. The Web site Lanka Dissent voluntarily stopped publishing on
January 10, citing fears of retribution; and the owner and chief editor
of Lanka e-News, Sandaruwan Senadheera told CPJ in January in Colombo
that he has been frequently called in for questioning by the Criminal
Investigation Department since a series of articles about the
activities of military and police intelligence started running in
February 2008.
Independent coverage from the front lines with the LTTE has been
stifled for years. Yet far from the battlefields, critical reporting
from the capital on the conduct of the war has been quashed, and Sri
Lanka's once-vocal opposition media is facing more repression than
under any preceding government. At least seven well-recognized
journalists, many of them who worked for the media organizations
targeted by the Defense Ministry, have stopped writing; one prominent
figure, Tissainayagam, is in jail, and several others have left the
country, including Tennakoon. Some have fled and returned, and stopped
reporting. This list is not all-inclusive, but among those affected
are:
Namal Perera, a freelance defense analyst, was attacked by
men wielding wooden poles as he traveled in a car with a senior
British High Commission official in June 2008. They had been
followed by two men on motorcycle before Perera's attackers
jumped out of a white van and smashed in the windows of his car
and assaulted him, Perera said.
Iqbal Athas, defense correspondent for The Sunday Times,
said he stopped writing his weekly column as a result of
threats. Athas also reports from Colombo for CNN and is a
correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly. In mid-2008, a pro-
government radio station broadcast for weeks, on an almost
daily basis, vituperative statements denouncing him, he told
CPJ, and the Defense Ministry's Web site published attacks on
his character. On June 3, 2008, on both the state-run
Rupavahini national television network and the state-owned
Independent Television Network, Defense Secretary Rajapaksa
faulted Athas by name for his independent reporting.
Keith Noyahr, associate editor of the English-language
weekly The Nation, was abducted from his home's garage, held
overnight and severely beaten, CPJ reported in May 2008. The
assault remains uninvestigated and unprosecuted. Noyahr
eventually fled the country. The Nation is owned by Rivira
Media Corporation, which also owns the paper for which
Tennakoon worked.
Parameswaree Maunasami, a Tamil reporter for the Sinhala-
language weekly Mawbima, was arrested in November 2006, and
held for four months without charge or trial under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act, CPJ reported at the time. She was
the first reporter to write about white Toyota HiAce vans with
tinted glass and no number plates that had been used to pick up
Tamils. A similar van was used in the attack on Perera. In his
January 16 ITN television interview this year, Defense
Secretary Rajapaksa mentioned her by name, again accusing her
of being a ``terrorist.'' The enterprising young reporter no
longer lives in Sri Lanka.
When read this list over the phone, Foreign Minister Bogollagama
said, ``If they were proper journalists, today they would be
journalists somewhere [else] in the world, if they had just left the
country for their safety.'' He went on to ask: ``We have so many
opposition journalists in this country, why is it only them'' who have
fled?
``Their so-called writings have affected our destiny and our
pursuit of counterterrorism,'' he added.
international response
The international community has responded strongly to January's
attacks, and those that preceded them. CPJ wrote to President Rajapaksa
last year, calling for him to address the attacks on the media. This
year we called for an independent inquiry into the attack on Sirasa TV
and, after the killing of Wickramatunga, we called for forceful action
from Colombo's diplomats. Other press freedom and human rights groups
have spoken out against Sri Lanka's media attacks.
The government has come under a barrage of criticism from the
diplomatic community, but diplomatic sources say they have little
purchase when meeting with the president and his advisors, and at times
have been treated dismissively. Some said they fear being marginalized
as the government pursues its military solution in the north, which is
supported by widespread popular approval in the rest of the country. In
Colombo, a disturbing analogy is being frequently used by journalists
and some diplomats: There is concern that Sri Lanka is heading in the
direction of becoming another Zimbabwe or Burma, countries run by
governments resistant to pressure to live up to global norms of human
rights.
recommendations
To the international community:
Engage with the Sri Lankan government, particularly the
president's office, to address what has become a protracted
assault on journalists and media houses.
Insist that the government rein in its security forces,
which are believed to be behind not only the spate of attacks
in January of this year, but the assaults on journalists
critical of the government that increased in late 2006.
Point out that Sri Lanka's international image has been
tarnished, and insist that attacks must be fully investigated
by police and the judiciary, unhindered by government pressure.
No matter what viewpoint the government holds in its attempts
to end the fighting with the LTTE, members of Sri Lanka's civil
society who dare to criticize the government must not be
treated as the enemy.
To the government of Sri Lanka:
Provide adequate protection and security for any journalist
who is threatened.
Ensure that those journalists who have fled in fear of their
lives or liberty can return home to Sri Lanka in safety.
Ensure an independent, thorough, and timely investigation of
all attacks on journalists.
Release the full autopsy report on Lasantha Wickramatunga.
To the U.S. government:
The American Embassy in Colombo is deeply concerned about
these attacks on journalists and has often acted in their
interest. CPJ calls on the State Department to work with the
embassy to consider ways to offer temporary refuge to Sri
Lankan journalists who decide to flee their country in fear for
their safety, and to encourage other countries to do the same.
None of these men and women want to abandon their homeland,
their families, and their careers, but they deserve some sort
of temporary refuge.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much.
And I appreciate the testimony of all three of our
witnesses and the attention of our audience.
I wanted to start. We will do 10-minute rounds, and I
wanted to start with some questions that relate to the camps.
As we know, the government has established refugee camps
for Tamils in the north who have fled the conflict zone. The
Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human
Rights told the London Times that the government hopes to
resettle 80 percent--80 percent of the refugees by the end of
the year.
However, he added that resettlement will not be a voluntary
process. And for the sake of citizens stuck in these camps, we
need to determine whether they are receiving proper assistance
and need to ensure they are not living indefinitely in
detention centers.
So I guess my first question--and any of you can answer
this--would be to, just for us, give us a sense of what is
happening there. Describe for us the condition of the camps.
Dr. Neistat. A good illustration is this photo that you can
see in front of you. As I said, there are currently 12 sites,
as far as we are aware, where the displaced are coming in
Vavuniya. There are also displaced in other areas, but Vavuniya
is where our investigation took place.
So they are surrounded by barbed wire and run by the
military. But what is more concerning is the presence of
plainclothes paramilitaries in the camps. They are, despite all
of the calls from the International Community, highly
militarized. There is, obviously, no talk about civilian nature
of these camps.
There are reportedly interrogations of the displaced being
conducted inside the camps. But most importantly, as I said,
the displaced have no freedom of movement. Nobody can leave the
camps under any conditions, aside from medical emergencies
where they are being guarded by the military to and back from
the hospital.
But the access of the humanitarian agencies continues to be
restricted. Indeed, the government, realizing that they cannot
deal with the influx of the displaced, allowed some agencies
access to the camps. But it remains restricted. And what is
worse, the decisions seem to be made on an ad hoc basis by a
military commander guarding the camp.
While we were there, for instance, on one of the days,
Handicapped International, an agency that is crucial right now
for assistance to the displaced or injured and have amputations
and who are in the camps, was denied access to the camps with
no reasons given, obviously.
And most importantly, all outsiders in the camps are being
very, very closely watched by the military and the
paramilitaries. And it is again part of the same campaign to
ensure that the displaced who just came from the Vanni have
nobody to talk to.
Senator Casey. You said that access is restricted. I want
to ask you if you can describe if there is a total prohibition
on any humanitarian aid coming in, or is it limited, or is it
ad hoc depending on what time period you are talking about? Or
are you talking about a total shutoff of any kind of
humanitarian aid, or does it vary between locations?
As best you can, and I know----
Dr. Neistat. Not in the camps. In the camps, agencies right
now do have access--U.N. agencies and certain international
humanitarian agencies, such as DRC, Danish Refugee Council, and
Norwegian Refugee Council, and some other groups. The problem
is that I think with the exception of UNHCR, the United Nations
refugee agency, with all other agencies, the access is somewhat
ad hoc.
While we were there for about a week, every day we would
hear a report from one or the other agency that they were
denied access. And it is not clear--it does look like this
decision is being made by a particular guard, particular
military commander in charge of a particular camp.
But assistance is being delivered. I mean, they do build
shelter. So there is certain assistance, emergency assistance
going into those camps.
Senator Casey. That can be documented, that aid is getting
through?
Dr. Neistat. Yes. As we were there, humanitarian agencies
started putting up shelter and obviously delivering food and
certain medical supplies to the camps.
Senator Casey. And just for the record, you said before in
your answer, you are talking about 12 sites. Is that what you
said?
Dr. Neistat. In Vavuniya.
Senator Casey. Right. OK.
I wanted to ask you as well what more can the International
Community be doing or could the International Community be
charged with? Or what recommendations would you make with
regard to what the International Community can be doing to
improve the situation in these camps?
I know it is kind of a broad question, but if you can
answer it as best as you can.
Dr. Neistat. Well, I think it is a very difficult one
because I think there is a huge dilemma that all humanitarian
agencies are facing right now. On one hand, as UNHCR and other
agencies said repeatedly, they do not want to support
militarized camps where other agencies and journalists and
nobody else has access to. So--but at the same time, they do
not want to deprive the displaced from the emergency
assistance.
So I think the answer should be that emergency assistance
definitely should be provided, but at the same time, government
should be pressed to comply with the conditions that it has
already agreed to--meaning civilian nature of the camps and
unimpeded access to the displaced for the International
Community.
But what should not be supported is the long-term
internment plans by the government. As you said, the government
promised to resettle 80 percent of the displaced by the end of
the year. But if you look into what has been going on with the
displaced in Sri Lankan history since the 1990s, this is not
likely to happen. And this is something the International
Community should not provide any assistance to.
Senator Casey. Can you give me a sense of how many people
we are talking about here?
Dr. Neistat. We are currently talking about 30,000 people
in Vavuniya. However, I also have to point out that we do not
have the exact numbers, and it looks like nobody in the
International Community has the exact numbers because the
government refused to share registration lists of the displaced
with the international agencies.
And that is true for those who were detained at checkpoints
and those who arrived to the camps, which is another
requirement that the government should comply with if it wants
to get assistance, meaning sharing registration lists and
obviously especially of those who did not make it to Vavuniya.
Senator Casey. We may get back to more of these questions
with regard to the camps. I am going to move to another topic
with regard to the humanitarian assistance in the north.
I wanted to ask you because my time is running out on this
round, but what programs does either the Red Cross or the U.N.
or other international organizations currently have on the
ground in the north? Do you have any sense of an itemized list
of programs, or do you have a sense of that?
Dr. Neistat. I can tell you what we know. To the best of
our knowledge, there are no international staff currently
present in the north in the conflict areas. All of the agencies
were banned or were discouraged by the government to operate in
the north in September. And since then----
Senator Casey. So none on the ground?
Dr. Neistat. No. They are not on the ground. There are
about 250 local staff of international agencies, but they
effectively do not--I mean, officially, they are not--they do
not work for those agencies at this moment.
ICRC organized convoys to evacuate patients. One happened
on January 28, if I am not mistaken, and another one just
recently while we were there. I think it was February 11
probably, to evacuate patients to Vavuniya hospital and
hospital in Trincomalee. And for that, international staff came
to the area, but then they left.
And as I said, agencies like World Food Programme that used
to deliver food convoys to the area do not do that anymore.
Senator Casey. I want to--before my time is up, I have
about a minute. But Ambassador, Mr. Dietz, would either of you
want to add anything to either the camp discussion or the
discussion about what is happening in the north?
Ambassador Lunstead. Yes, I would make two points. The
first is that dealing with the situation, the humanitarian
situation certainly in the camps is well within the capacity of
the International Community and the government working
together.
After all, after the tsunami, we dealt with a million
displaced persons and, working together, did it quite well. So
there is no doubt that this could be dealt with in the proper
conditions.
The second is the militarized nature of the camps, and we
have to be plain about this. People are in the camps because
they are Tamils, because of their ethnic identity.
Now, clearly, the government has a responsibility to screen
people as they come in. But to keep them behind barbed wire,
essentially under military guard simply because of their ethnic
identity not only is wrong, it perpetuates the problem--the
reason for this problem in the first place, the differentiation
of the citizens of Sri Lanka based on their birth.
Senator Casey. I will go to my next round, but I wanted to
turn it over to Senator Lugar.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to seek for your advice on the course for our
Government. At least a rudimentary reading of the history of
the country would lead one to believe that for the last 26
years, essentially, there has been an attempt by the Government
of Sri Lanka to bring about unity in the country, and
essentially, some Tamils have not wanted this unity.
Now you pointed out, Ambassador, that the government maybe
has not been adept in terms of federalist principles or various
ways in which the Tamil people could have been fully
incorporated into the situation. On the other hand, some would
argue that not all Tamils have not wanted to be incorporated.
They have wanted a separate state or to have a degree of
separation that was unacceptable if Sri Lanka was to be one
country.
This does not mandate 26 years of conflict. But
nevertheless, as you have pointed out, from time to time this
has arisen, and sometimes divisions within the government has
perhaps brought about conditions in which the Tamil Tigers felt
this was an opportune time. And although Sri Lanka is sometimes
described as a relatively sophisticated state, the fact is that
it has not been able to bring about unity, and therefore,
conflict has continued.
So we come to this point in which at least our briefing
papers indicate that the Tamil Tigers may have been confined to
something like 150 square kilometers, one description of the
territory left to them. This is less than half the size of my
home city of Indianapolis, just to get some perspective, for
all of them.
And some would say the war has been relatively successful
on this occasion, although it may lead to insurgency in the
future
or people sort of poking out after they are confined to 150
square kilometers.
What is the leverage point or should be the leverage point
of the United States or the International Community in advising
the people--all sides--of Sri Lanka how they should govern
themselves, how they should live, how they should draw their
lines? Specifically, what leverage do we have that would be
meaningful at this point?
In this hearing, we are looking into atrocities and the
problems of the press and all the things that come from a
conflict in which people are killing each other, but with the
objective on the part of the government of providing one state,
unity, despite the resistance of others who don't want this.
And I ask you, Ambassador, from your experience there on
the ground during the period that you served, what was the
policy of the United States with regard to perfection of the
governance of the country? Or what leverage did we have?
And if we could have gotten others to join us--India,
China, others who are in the neighborhood--what leverage would
they have on peoples that, for a variety of reasons, have
chosen not to be very compatible and have really waged a
warfare for a quarter of a century?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, Senator, you have summarized
many of the difficulties of this issue very well. It is
important to realize that we don't really know what all the
Tamils of Sri Lanka want.
There are about 3 million Tamils in Sri Lanka. Although a
large number of them live in the north and the east, they also
live in other parts of the island. About a third of the
population of Colombo, for instance, 700,000 people are Tamils.
They clearly choose to live in places which are not controlled
by the LTTE.
Also, Tamil voices for peaceful solutions have been
eliminated by the LTTE itself, and there are many instances of
that. So we don't know really what everybody wants. But I think
that most Sri Lankans want to live in peace in a land where
they can pursue their lives without harassment or without
problems.
There are ways to do that that the political leaders of Sri
Lanka can come up with if they want to. This is a time. The
President will have tremendous opportunity now, President
Rajapaksa, if he is willing to do that, if he grasps the depth
of Tamil grievances and the radical changes that will be
needed.
But I think that it is important to look at this not as
something for Sinhalese to give to Tamils, but as changes which
would improve the governance of the country for all Sri Lankans
because, in fact, that is the case. It would give them a
greater say in their own lives and how they are governed.
With regard to leverage, there isn't much leverage right
now. Sri Lanka, of course, cares somewhat about the opinion of
the International Community, but not enough to stop the
military offensive. They see an opportunity now and seem
determined to pursue that opportunity.
The United States and others, we do not provide large
amounts of assistance. Sri Lanka receives most of its military
supplies from Pakistan, from China, from commercial purchase in
Eastern Europe. We have little ability to turn that off.
As I have suggested, one opportunity will be in provision
of development assistance for reconstruction. Sri Lanka will
need significant funds to develop both the north and the east,
which they intend to do, and the rest of the country. A lot of
that money will come from the World Bank, from the Asian
Development Bank. Japan is Sri Lanka's largest bilateral donor.
Their assistance far surpasses ours, which is really very
small.
If the donors--the International Community--came together
to insist that this money will flow only under certain
conditions, then there might be an opportunity. That is the
leverage that I can see. Frankly, I was searching when I wrote
my testimony to see where the leverage was. That is an
opportunity I can see. I don't see too many other
opportunities.
Senator Lugar. Let us say, ideally, that all these groups
by country or agencies came together, would they also bring
along with them political scientists or somebody to write a
business plan?
In other words, it is well and good to call upon the
governments to do the right thing, but there does not seem to
have been the creativity within the government. Or if it has
been, those leaders who offered that have been annihilated in
the process. So we are down to brass tacks again without a
plan.
And this is why as I read the testimony today, as well as
the history, it is not the only situation like this on Earth,
but it really is brutal in terms of the lack of alternatives
for the people who are involved.
Ambassador Lunstead. One of the saddest things here is that
the solutions are not that difficult. Any political scientist
or politician could draw up a plan for changing Sri Lankan
governance and devolving power. It is the politics of doing
that, which has been the problem consistently in Sri Lanka.
So it can happen. It is a question really of will and
political leadership.
Senator Lugar. I am just curious, given the politics, one
of the major parties has a Marxist element that is substantial,
although maybe not dominant. What does the other party look
like?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, traditionally, President
Rajapaksa's party has been considered more of a leftist party.
The opposition, the UNP considered more of a rightist party,
more free market tendencies. In reality, the parties have never
been that far apart on policies. It is more personal ambition
and personal rivalry that divides them.
Senator Lugar. And so, they brought--the personal leaders
brought together coalitions that gave them, at least, the
ability to defeat somebody else in an election.
Ambassador Lunstead. That is right.
Senator Lugar. But not really an overall planning strategy
for the future of the country.
Ambassador Lunstead. That is correct. They have been unable
to agree on a way to move forward unitedly and usually derailed
by personal ambition.
Senator Lugar. What has been the position of the United
States Government through the Ambassador? What signals or
messages are coming?
Ambassador Lunstead. I don't speak anymore for the
Government. I am in the very new situation for me of being able
to say anything I feel like, which is a very nice situation.
Senator Lugar. But you are an observer of what is going on.
Ambassador Lunstead. Hard to get used to sometimes. But as
far as I know, the Embassy has been very forthright. Ambassador
Blake and the Embassy staff and the Department have supported
the right things and have tried to do it through diplomatic
means, through discussions with the government but have not had
a huge impact, not through any personal failings, but simply
because of the objective nature of the situation.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Casey. Thank you, Senator Lugar.
Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. Briefly, this is kind of depressing to
listen to this because nobody has really put the finger on who
is at fault here. Somebody is at fault for this. I mean,
somebody doesn't want to get along or some groups don't want to
get along because, as you point out, I mean, the solutions
really aren't rocket science. They are ones that a pretty
rudimentary political scientist should be able to resolve.
Does this go on--what is the endgame here? I see that they
are nearing an end, at least the government side is, as far as
military operations are concerned. But what is the endgame?
Where do they go from here?
I have heard everyone say what should happen. I haven't
heard anybody say what will probably happen. Can I get all
three of you to briefly give me your idea of what the endgame
is here?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, President Rajapaksa has said
that he is willing to consider changes in the governance
system, that he will meet shortly with the Tamil politicians
who are not from the LTTE who have ideas on how to move
forward. Whether that will be a serious effort and whether they
will be willing to make substantial changes, we just don't
know.
There is also a political process, an all-party conference,
which has been meeting for several years to come up with
proposals on ways to change the political system.
As I mentioned in my testimony, President Rajapaksa is
extraordinarily popular now. He is riding a wave of great
popular support because of the military victories. It is
rumored that he will shortly call a parliamentary election. It
is expected to come back with a large majority, perhaps large
enough to amend the Constitution.
So he has--he will have a tremendous opportunity, if he has
the foresight and the political will to take it, to change the
political system in the country in a way which could do away
with this problem. Whether he personally has the will to do
that, I couldn't say.
Dr. Neistat. I would just address another aspect of that,
namely what is going to happen to hundreds of thousands of
internally displaced who will eventually--those who survive--
come out of the Vanni? Judging by previous experience, they are
very likely, unless some action is taken now, to be detained,
confined in these internment camps indefinitely.
And then, if some of them are released, and that is a very
serious concern if you look at what has been happening, for
instance, in Jaffna and Sri Lanka for quite a number of years
already, this conflict will turn into a classic dirty war with
paramilitaries running around the villages detaining people who
would then disappear or be executed.
And I think this is also the best illustration of the fact
that when the government is claiming right now that all of
these casualties are justified, all of these abuses are
justified because it is just weeks short of crushing the
terrorist LTTE, that this argument is not just cynical and
unlawful, but also very shortsighted.
Because if you look at how Tamil population is being
treated right now in the Vanni and as they move to government-
controlled areas, you can see that this is definitely not the
way to reconciliation and long-term peaceful solutions.
Senator Risch. I will follow up on that. What are your
thoughts, I mean, as far as who should do what? You have got a
clear prediction as to what is going to happen. To avoid that,
who should do what?
Dr. Neistat. Well, I am not sure I have the time to go
through all of our recommendations. They are definitely in our
report. We have certain calls on the Sri Lankan Government and
on the LTTE, to the extent that anybody can have influence over
this.
But I think there are short-term goals that are very clear.
First of all, we need concerned governments, including the U.S.
Government, must do something--should do something--to just
stop what is happening right now when civilians are being
killed by both sides of the conflict by hundreds, and that
means providing, ensuring that there are humanitarian
corridors, there are ways of people to get out.
Second of all is what happens when people get out. This is
why we are pushing so hard to end this policy of internment
camps. People must resettle into the areas where they were
displaced from, and this is the fundamental principle of
international law and a very clear obligation of the Sri Lankan
Government.
And then, obviously, in terms of a more political message
that I think needs to be sent to the Sri Lankan Government is
that this argument of final victory over LTTE at any cost will
not be bought by the International Community, that people do
see what is going to happen unless they change their attitude
toward the Tamil
population, both in the northern Vanni and in other areas of
the country.
Senator Risch. Mr. Dietz.
Mr. Dietz. Yes, Senator, I approached Sri Lanka as a
problem of journalists and how they are operating and the
pressures on them. The journalists with whom I spoke felt that
what was happening to them from the government was something
that started with the government's efforts against the LTTE
when they decided to go and go for this all-out military
solution, that they were also going to take care of the
homefront and stifle criticism there.
And I asked them specifically do you think this will end
once there is a military--a final military solution? And most
of them said no. That what they fear at this point is a popular
government, as the Ambassador pointed out, but one that is
going to still act repressively and control dissent and
criticism.
The fear is that there will be some sort of lower level
intensity conflict going on after this great military clash
resolves itself in the north, and the government will be able
to use that to continue its repressive measures. The
journalists with whom I am speaking expect more of the same in
the coming years, even after this situation appears to resolve
itself in the north.
The other thing that--I spoke with a real lot of people. I
did a real journalist's job and just swung through Colombo for
a week. I spoke with a lot of people on the right and a lot of
people within the government--or sorry, within progovernment
papers and antigovernment papers and people in civil society
and with three diplomatic missions who I won't identify.
An analogy that I heard several times--not just once but
five or six times--was that people are beginning to worry that
the government is moving in such a way and will have such a
mandate from the population that they will not be responsive to
international pressure, and they will be able to discard it.
Somehow they will find a way to survive the economic
crisis, to survive financially. But the feeling was--and I am
repeating what other people are saying. The feeling was that
somehow Sri Lanka is moving in the direction of Zimbabwe or
Myanmar in terms of a nation, a country, or a government where
the International Community no longer has that purchase or, as
Senator Lugar said, the leverage to work things.
That more and more, this is a government certainly
meeting--in its own eyes and on its own terms meeting with
great success in finally solving a 26-year-long problem that
the country has faced. Whether it is to our liking or not is
not for them to worry about.
But somehow this government seemed to be isolating itself
more and more. There are family ties and there are links within
the government. The Defense Secretary is a brother. The senior
adviser to the President is a brother. They are all Rajapaksas,
and there is a sense of people coming from another region,
another part of Sri Lanka trying to do some sort of reform or
change.
And well, as I said, people are just not finding the
purchase or the leverage that they have had in the past in the
Sri Lankan Government, and they are worried that coming off of
this apparent military success that is going to increase that
problem.
Senator Casey. Thank you, Senator.
I wanted to return to a question that we have covered
somewhat in the question period, but we all spoke to in one way
or another, and that is the violence against journalists.
Plenty of examples to point to.
Obviously, the most egregious recent example was the death
of Mr. Wickramatunga, and I guess I wanted to ask the question
from two vantage points. One is on the mechanics of the
interplay between journalism and the government, and the other
is in terms of the governmental power, I guess, is the best way
to describe it.
Mr. Dietz, I wanted to start with you. You have done rather
extensive research, and it is of recent vintage. To what extent
do you find any kind of identifiable government intrusion in
the media? Please give us a sense of the examples of that.
Mr. Dietz. It is pretty obvious and blatant. First of all,
just let me set, for 30 seconds, a scene of a country that is
politically riven over the years.
As the Ambassador pointed out, you are looking at
contending factions and families and different groups. And not
that much of an ideological split, rather is whose side are you
on? It is not really Marxist versus free market or something
like that.
Typically, political parties or political families have
newspapers which are sympathetic to their reporting. Having
said that, there is a fair amount of legitimate journalism that
goes on in Sri Lanka, and I think it is fair to say that the
government has made it clear that people who dare to criticize
it in any way are considered traitors or are engaging in
treachery.
Most of those accusations come from the Secretary of
Defense, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the President's brother.
Accusations naming specifically journalists--and in my report,
I have a long list of names--this person is a traitor because
they publicized this. This journalist is engaged in treachery.
During the attack on Sirasa TV in which a claymore mine
was--or there was an explosion, which certainly looks like a
claymore mine was detonated, a young reporter from Sirasa had
an interview with CNN. And he said, yes, whoever it was who
came in here detonated a claymore mine.
Defense Secretary Rajapaksa within I think a day, less than
a day, less than 24 hours, responded that this reporter--and I
won't bother to name him here--this reporter was a traitor,
that how dare he say such a thing. He better watch out for his
safety. These sort of responses are regular and current.
The attacks on journalists, these that go uninvestigated or
unprosecuted, we have shied away from saying that these are
military attacks, OK? The bombing, the attack on Sirasa TV took
place with what we call military precision by 20 men who swept
into a place, detonated a claymore mine by stringing wires down
a maze of corridor halls. They carried weapons similar to that
used by the government.
But we are not saying that it was the government or the
military who did this. We are saying this case needs
investigation.
The other attacks also bear similarity. Men appear on
motorcycles, force a car over to the road. More recently, not
using guns. Using poles or sticks to smash in windows and
windshields and then attack the target; the journalist that
they are going after.
This happened in the case of Lasantha Wickramatunga, Upali
Tennakoon. It happened in the case of Namal Perera, who is a
journalist who left about 6, 8 months ago, who was pulled out
of his car while he was riding with a member of the British
High Commission.
White vans have been going around the city. Unmarked,
unlicensed plates, white Toyota Hiace vans with tinted windows,
going around picking up people--opponents, Tamils, and people
the government does not like.
Is this the government doing it? Hard to believe that
people can operate in a city where there are so many
checkpoints because of the Tamil threat, the security threats,
that people cannot move freely around that city without having
to stop and identify themselves every 5 or 10 minutes.
Senator Casey. Give me a sense of--as opposed to print
journalism--the airwaves. If you can describe that, which in
this country, as you know, is the predominant way people get
their news. With no disrespect to newspapers, people get their
news mostly through television.
And I realize they are different. It is not in any way
parallel to the deployment of that kind of technology and that
kind of television presence that we have here. But just give me
a sense of what it is like on the ground in terms of what they
hear or see on the airwaves.
Mr. Dietz. Sirasa was the one independent, large
independent station, widely watched, widely received. Sirasa
also operates four radio stations and three TV channels.
The rest of the television broadcast media are
progovernment or owned by the government in a legitimate sense
of being government-run stations. They are clearly identified
with the government and make themselves available to government
members to criticize--or to put forth their viewpoints. There
is one other small television broadcaster who really doesn't
play as large a part in this.
Radio stations tend to be a bit freer--certainly government
and progovernment stations, but also more independent and some
antigovernment stations as well, clearly antigovernment. Hard
to find in that media universe in Sri Lanka that ideal
broadcaster or newspaper, which is not tied or which isn't
linked, one way or another, to one side of this argument or
this discussion in civil society.
The journalists who operate, frankly, I see them as
colleagues, as people doing what I used to do for a living as a
journalist and going out and reporting. I think when you look
at how media is consumed in Sri Lanka, newspapers continue to
play a very large part, that they appear in Tamil. They appear
in Sinhalese. They appear in English as well.
And that if a citizen of Sri Lanka wants to watch Fox or
CNN or the equivalent--BBC or another broadcaster--that they
will be able to find a voice for them. And actually, that is
the saddest part. Because what has been traditionally a pretty
vibrant media, if politically tied media, it seems to be coming
under much, much heavier government pressure.
And that tradition, so fundamental to a democracy, of
having all those voices out there and feeding that conversation
across the population are quietly beginning to be silenced. A
lot of the journalists I know have simply stopped reporting for
fear of retribution from the government.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much.
I wanted to ask the Ambassador about, in light of what we
know about the death of Mr. Wickramatunga, writing the
editorial days before he died and predicting the circumstances
of his death. What is your sense, having spent time there and
having to deal with the government and the legal underpinning
of the government, how much control does the President have
over the security services in Sri Lanka?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, of course, that is a very
important question, which we can't really answer. It is who
knew what and when, and I don't know the answer to that.
I know President Rajapaksa pretty well. I have met him,
spoken to him at length any number of times. I don't see him as
someone who is directing the murder of people. That doesn't
mean that there aren't elements within the government or the
military who don't do this.
This has happened before in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has had
very dark periods in its history when murder squads were used
to suppress dissent and rebellion, and it has come back from
those periods also.
So I think that, as I said, that it is simply not credible
to think that there aren't some elements of the government
involved in these attempts. How high that goes and who is
involved, I couldn't say.
Senator Casey. How about just the legal mechanics of his
control, absent an event or an allegation?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, the President----
Senator Casey. How does it work, in essence?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, the President, it is a very
powerful Presidency. The President is, for instance, both
Commander in Chief and Defense Minister. That is why--so he is
in charge of the military. He has delegated most of the running
of the military to his brother, the Defense Secretary. I think
if he wanted these incidents to stop, he could make them stop
tomorrow. And that would be the key.
And we know that in a guerrilla war, and I have said this
to the President personally, in a guerrilla war, incidents
occur. The important thing is that after they occur that
someone take responsibility; that there be accountability, that
there be a prosecution.
Incidents occur with U.S. forces in guerrilla wars. We know
that. But we prosecute people who carry them out. That then
sends a message to everybody else. If you don't take any
action, if there is no accountability, it sends a totally
opposite message, which is that you may operate with impunity.
You don't have to give an order in that case.
Senator Casey. And with regard to Mr. Wickramatunga, was it
an escalating series of attacks that culminated in his death,
or was it that singular incident?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, Mr. Wickramatunga has long had a
reputation as a journalist who attacks everybody in power. He
has done that to different administrations in Sri Lanka.
He had had some threats from the current government,
although they were more on the nature of verbal threats than
physical attacks. But I think that the actual physical attack
on him was something, although he in a way predicted it, but
probably never expected it would happen.
Senator Casey. Thank you.
Senator Lugar.
Senator Lugar. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to observe
that the committee has chosen to have this hearing because
there is really a sensitivity and, in fact, a passion for the
freedom of the press, for the problems of human rights around
the world. And obviously, the attendance at the hearing
indicates a large number of citizens are deeply interested in
Sri Lanka at this particular time.
And I mention this because in another fora in Washington,
the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan, plus the
heads of their military--in the case of the Pakistanis, the
ISI, their secret service--are all meeting with Secretary
Clinton, Richard Holbrooke, others, discussing the problems of
the Taliban or the
al-Qaeda or security situations in that complex that led to an
attack upon our country.
Fear is that they might lead to another attack if we are
not successful working out the politics and the security of
those countries. So there is obviously intense interest with
regard to American security. Now conceivably there are such
threats in Sri Lanka, but these have not been expressed today.
What we are really looking into is a country that has
severe problems, and we are expressing Americans' deep interest
in that country, what our responsibility ought to be, what our
options might be to be more successful. And I think that is
just important to state for the record, that there is deep
concern.
What I suppose also I just am curious, from any of the
three of you--leaving aside the specifics of what we are
looking at today, the murder of journalists, internment camps,
human rights violations, seemingly interminable war for 26
years--what is the importance of Sri Lanka to the United States
or to India, Pakistan, China, or other countries in the area,
to the International Community generally?
In other words, what role does it play now? Potentially,
what role could it play? What are some of the upside potentials
of success really in working out the internal problems and
these difficulties?
Because this will be important for the International
Community and really for people in the United States as we
would approach, say, the authorization or appropriation
process. And someone would say we ought to be doing more in Sri
Lanka. More of what? And at what cost?
And so, we finally identify objectives, and we try to get
authorization for specific kinds of assistance to the country.
Our colleagues will ask why? What is the importance of Sri
Lanka? What role does it play? What are others doing? Who are
we allied with in all of this?
I mention this because, otherwise, I suspect we will have
other hearings like this. I hope not the same grim statistics
and descriptions, but I am trying to look for a better outcome
or at least some charge as to how we move along the trail.
Ambassador, I will pick on you to begin with again as
somebody who served some time there as an objective observer of
those who were now serving our country and then working with
other countries, as our Ambassador does. What is the importance
of the country? What is the potential importance in the region,
with us, with anybody?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, when I was in Sri Lanka and the
International Community was quite engaged in supporting the
peace process, I used to joke to my Sri Lankan friends that Sri
Lanka got more attention in Washington than it deserved, by
which I meant not that it wasn't an important issue, but that
the United States had no strategic interest in Sri Lanka.
There is no petroleum there. It is not a major trading
partner. We don't have military bases. It is a nice country
with which we have good relationships. It is also a country
which has been successful in many ways and especially in
contrast to its South Asian neighbors. It has almost a 100-
percent literacy rate. It has very good social and economic
indicators.
It has shown that it can succeed. And it seems to me that
that is where our interest lies. Not in some strategic
interest, but in showing that this country, which for so long
has had this terrible ethnic struggle and expressed in military
conflict and terrorism, could put that behind and find a
political solution.
If it could do that, which it can with the right political
will, that would be a tremendous example for the region and for
the world that terrorism is not the answer to a political
issue. And Sri Lanka could move ahead and do that, if it
desires to do so.
Senator Lugar. Ms. Neistat, do you have some thoughts on
this subject?
Dr. Neistat. Just a very brief one. I guess from the
perspective of Human Rights Watch, there are certain situations
that the International Community needs to address regardless of
a particular country's geopolitical importance. And we do
believe that the situation in Sri Lanka has reached this level.
When civilians are being killed by hundreds on a daily
basis and when thousands of others are on the edge of
starvation and possible deaths, this is probably a situation
where concerned governments, including the United States, must
intervene regardless of the country's importance. And I do
think that that is why we are so much encouraging the United
States to use its leverage to make sure that the issue gets
raised at the Security Council.
Because it does seem that Sri Lankan Government cares about
whether or not it comes before the Security Council. And if it
does, it will send a very strong signal to the government.
Senator Lugar. So the strategy you would employ would be
for our Government to move through our Ambassador to the United
Nations to bring this issue before the Security Council?
Dr. Neistat. Ideally. I mean, there are two options,
obviously. One is a proper special session on Sri Lanka at the
Security Council, which may or may not be realistic because
there are certain other countries involved that may potentially
block it.
Senator Lugar. I see.
Dr. Neistat. But what is definitely possible is a briefing
by U.N. humanitarian coordinator who just returned from the
region, which, if I understand the procedure correctly, cannot
be so easily blocked. And this can happen in the coming days
because he did just return. So in terms of immediate to-do
things, that would be something that could be very helpful.
Senator Lugar. Just out of curiosity, which countries would
want to block consideration by Security Council?
Dr. Neistat. I would think that China and Russia would be
on the list.
Senator Lugar. Yes, sir.
Ambassador Lunstead. Could I just add something? I was not,
in any way, belittling the humanitarian issue, which needs to
be addressed. But I do think that Sri Lanka's need for
assistance to deal with such issues as resettlement is an
important leverage point.
Now I have heard, for instance, that the World Bank has
already conveyed to the Government of Sri Lanka that it is
ready to consider requests for resettlement moneys. The United
States and others can be very plain on that, saying that, yes,
money is needed, but it should only be provided under certain
conditions. And there has to be transparency and resettlement
of these people according to acceptable international norms.
That is very straightforward, and I think we can do that.
Senator Lugar. International participation, in this case,
through the World Bank, for example?
Ambassador Lunstead. Through the World Bank or the ADB or
other lenders, yes.
Senator Lugar. Mr. Dietz, do you have any comment on this
situation?
Mr. Dietz. I will go beyond my brief as journalist; one
just concerned about media. But to me, it strikes me that Sri
Lanka is a perfect place for everyone to try and get it right,
once and for all.
Here, you have an ethnic divide that is going on for a
great historical length, and we see that playing out in so many
other countries as well. But in a lot of those places, let us
say, Afghanistan or Pakistan, you have political--it is all
freighted with political reasons of geopolitics. Sri Lanka,
that doesn't apply as much.
It is completely viable as a nation. It has a well-educated
population. It has a tradition of--it is one of the oldest
democracies in Asia. And if the Government or if the
Governments of Sri Lanka can be brought along and developed and
encouraged like to try and transcend this one problem, which
they haven't been able to deal with, it could emerge as a
shining example of everything that our Government and much of
the Western world holds up as an ideal.
It has failed consistently to do that, and for many
reasons. But this is one place in which it could all go right,
instead of not working out.
Senator Lugar. Well, I thank you, all three, for your
testimony and your help to each one of us. Thank you.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much, Senator Lugar.
I know we have to conclude shortly. But I wanted to raise
another general area of inquiry here. I mentioned in my opening
the possibility that at some point if the Sri Lankan Army is
able to prevail totally in a sense that you could drive LTTE
into the underground, I guess that is a possibility.
But if the Sinhalese majority and the government can
negotiate an agreement with the Tamil minority, it is possible,
I guess, that the LTTE might be isolated and lose legitimacy. I
know that we don't know if that will happen. But I guess one
area of questioning I wanted to get into was the question of
what can we expect in terms of credible negotiations leading to
a political settlement, in this sense?
And I guess I would start with you, Mr. Ambassador. What is
your sense, and this is for each of the witnesses. What is your
sense about the Sri Lankan Government's interest in even
reaching a political solution at this point? Or do they think
that they have got momentum, so to speak, militarily and that
they don't need to consider that or need to closely examine
that option?
Ambassador Lunstead. Well, that is the key question is if
the LTTE is defeated as a conventional military force, will the
government then seize the opportunity to make political
changes, which will satisfy the grievances of Tamils and recast
the political structure of the country? Or will it say, well,
we don't need to do that anymore?
I think that could go either way, and we don't know. It
will depend on the leadership of the President. It could depend
also on the encouragement of Sri Lanka's friends from outside
to take this opportunity and to show that if the President does
that, that Sri Lanka's friends will support the country and
help it move forward.
There is a need for a lot of reconstruction, and that is a
hard thing to do. But we could do that. But the opportunity is
there. There is no question about that.
I think the President is not a racist. I think he would
like to do the right thing. The question is whether he will see
what the right thing is.
He has said all along that this is a fight to, as he puts
it, liberate the Tamils from the LTTE. I think that is a little
bit rhetorical there. But certainly most Tamils in the country,
I think, would accept a political solution which dealt with
their grievances.
Senator Casey. Ms. Neistat, any sense of what you have seen
on the ground and----
Dr. Neistat. I would just add very briefly that from what
we are seeing so far on the ground, it does not look like the
Sri Lankan Government is serious about that. Because probably
before any political process takes place long term, it should,
first of all, stop dropping rockets and shells on the heads of
the Tamils, the very Tamils that it is claiming to be
liberating, and allow them the freedom of movement and stop the
humiliation that they are encountering after they cross into
the government-controlled areas.
I do think that it is very important, and unfortunately,
from what we heard from many observers on the ground, what the
government is doing right now could eventually fuel further
support of the antigovernment forces rather than help
reconciliation.
Senator Casey. Mr. Dietz.
Mr. Dietz. I will step away from my role as a policy
analyst and put back on my press hat, and now my fedora and my
press card, and just say that journalists with whom I spoke are
fearful for the future, that they don't see the pressure on
them ending when this fighting stops in the north.
And that they expect there is still a Tamil identity, and
Tamils will continue to push one way or another for some
greater autonomy or some sort of freedom or recognition that
they are not getting now, and that they expect the government
to be as resistant to covering that as they are during the
intensely military conflict that is going on now. They don't
see a bright future ahead.
Senator Casey. I would ask one concluding question, and
each of you, I want to give you an opportunity to say anything
that you might have wanted to say in response to other
questions. But my last question is, and I don't know if Senator
Lugar has more? But it is just a basic question, which I
thought of that I didn't ask before, but for Ms. Neistat.
What is the most urgent--and be as specific as you can be--
the most urgent humanitarian need right now in the near term,
in the next, literally the next couple of months? Apart from
the question of access to aid, what is the most urgent need? Is
there one thing that is lacking in terms of humanitarian aid
that the International Community could help with?
Dr. Neistat. You mean in the Vanni or in Vavuniya, the
areas where people manage to flee to? I think there are two
somewhat different issues.
Senator Casey. Right. Why don't you cover both?
Dr. Neistat. Yes. I mean, very briefly, in the Vanni, it is
food and medical supplies.
Senator Casey. OK.
Dr. Neistat. And medical supplies in particular because, I
mean, just I got an e-mail yesterday from a colleague from a
humanitarian agency. There are no antibiotics. There is just
nothing to treat patients with. And as shelling continues,
there are more and more people getting injured on a daily
basis. And the same is true for food. It is just running out.
As for the situation with the camps, there, as I said, the
situation with humanitarian assistance is better. But if the
government is expecting the influx of another hundreds of
thousands of people out of the Vanni, then there must be places
for shelter. There must be arrangements made for the
International Community to assist people.
And obviously, as I said, in the hospital it is just a
question of letting agencies provide whatever the needs of the
hospitals are. And this can be very specific, such as bed
sheets and clothing for the patients. But it is just the matter
of making sure that agencies have access to the patients to
provide supplies.
Senator Casey. Great. Thank you.
Unless any of you have any further commentary. Mr.
Ambassador.
Ambassador Lunstead. On that point you raised about
immediate need, it is a humanitarian need, although it is not
an issue of a supply. But the other need is to set up a system
where those who are detained by the government are noted. They
are not just taken off.
That a competent agency--and most people think that the
International Committee of the Red Cross is the right one, and
they have done this role in Sri Lanka before. That when someone
is detained by the government on suspicion of being an LTTE
fighter, that the ICRC is present, that their name is taken
down, that their relatives are notified. So there is a record
of who has been taken and where they have gone.
I understand that the ICRC is in negotiations with the
government to set up such a system like that now. The
International Community is supporting it. But that is something
which is not being done now. Some supplies are getting in now.
Not enough. But this one, nothing is being done right now, and
that is an urgent thing because it is people's lives that are
at stake.
Senator Casey. Mr. Dietz, you have last the word.
Mr. Dietz. The last word, and it is a very fine point to
make. I wish I could end on a broader, sweeping statement. We
have a request to make of the U.S. Government and other Western
nations, and I made it when I listed my recommendations.
We are aware of a lot of journalists who want to leave or
who have left Sri Lanka. The Committee to Protect Journalists
and the other media support organizations are stretched very
thin. We cannot offer them the support they need.
We would like governments and aid agencies to step forward
and help us meet that need. Frankly, this problem isn't limited
to Sri Lanka. I deal with all of Asia, and I am looking at
Pakistan and Afghan journalists, too, who have to get out
because people are coming after them.
We are running out of resources to deal with that, and we
are looking for as much help as we can get. And this is,
frankly, the most public and best forum I could think of to
raise that issue.
Having said that, I would just like to say thanks very much
for the opportunity to appear here today.
Senator Casey. Thank you very much.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:17 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Prepared Statement of Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, U.S. Senator From Vermont
The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka that has waxed and waned for
decades costing the lives of tens of thousands of people, has exploded
into a full scale war and it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of
the carnage.
The origins of the conflict arise from decades of the Sinhalese
majority's systematic discrimination against the Tamil minority, and
its denial of the Tamils' meaningful participation in the political
process. The Sri Lankan army is almost exclusively Sinhalese.
Successive Sinhalese-dominated governments have failed to effectively
address these longstanding injustices.
Over the years, peaceful demonstrations by Tamils have been met
with violence by Sinhalese extremists, which has in turn fostered
violent extremism on the Tamil side.
In recent weeks, as the Sri Lankan army has seized control of most
of the northern strongholds of the Tamil Tigers, or LTTE as they are
otherwise known, the situation has gone from dire to the verge of
catastrophe for the estimated 250,000 vulnerable civilians who are
trapped in a so-called ``safe zone.''
The LTTE has a history of suicide bombings and other indiscriminate
attacks against civilians, using civilians as shields, and preventing
civilians under their control from escaping to government areas.
Several hundred local staff of the United Nations and international
humanitarian organizations are reportedly trapped because the LTTE
refuses to allow them to leave. The LTTE has been designated a foreign
terrorist organization by the United States.
For its part, the Sri Lankan army insists it is targeting the LTTE,
not civilians. But the army has also acted in ways that have blurred
any meaningful distinction between itself and the LTTE. It has
reportedly shelled areas populated by civilians, including hospitals,
causing hundreds of casualties, summarily executed suspected LTTE
sympathizers, and detained those who have fled LTTE areas, including
women and children, in militarized camps where they are exposed to
great hardship and danger.
The United Nations says a compound sheltering U.N. national staff
inside the safety zone was shelled on January 24 and 25, killing at
least 9 civilians and wounding more than 20. On January 26, another
artillery attack reportedly narrowly missed U.N. local staff working in
the safety zone, but caused dozens of civilian deaths. The
International Committee of the Red Cross has said that ``[h]undreds of
patients need emergency treatment and evacuation to [a] hospital in the
government-controlled area.''
In the past 2 days, another hospital was reportedly shelled
multiple times, resulting in more civilian deaths and injuries.
Human Rights Watch reports that since last September, when the Sri
Lankan Government ordered the withdrawal of most U.N. and
nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, as well as journalists,
from the conflicted area, a grave humanitarian crisis has developed
with acute shortages of food, shelter, medicine, and other humanitarian
supplies.
The Sri Lankan Government has a duty to respect the rights and
protect the safety of all Sri Lankan citizens, whatever their ethnic
origin or political views. Instead, the government has embarked on a
strategy to defeat the LTTE militarily and in doing so has shown
disregard for the laws of war. Rather than protecting the Tamil people,
the government has often contributed to their suffering. Its strategy
has been to cordon off the area and blame everything, including its own
violations, on the LTTE.
Since 1984, successive peace talks have failed, as both the LTTE
and the Sri Lankan Government have reneged on their agreements, and the
government has failed to provide the vision and leadership necessary to
build a multiethnic consensus. Both sides' extreme ethnic nationalist
agendas have caused widespread human suffering. Both sides are
accountable.
I have no sympathy for the LTTE, which has brought misery upon the
Tamil people it professes to represent. But while the LTTE has been
severely weakened, it is unlikely to disappear, and the cycle of
violence may continue.
It is imperative that the government and the LTTE agree to an
immediate cease-fire to avoid further loss of life, permit access to
U.N. monitors and humanitarian organizations, and permit civilians to
leave for areas of safety. The Obama administration, the British,
Indian, and other concerned governments, should be publicly urging the
same.
Over the longer term, if lasting peace is to come to Sri Lanka, the
government must effectively address, in negotiations which include all
the main Tamil and Muslim parties, the core issues that have fueled the
conflict including laws and policies that unfairly discriminate against
Sri Lanka's minorities.
There is a related issue that needs to be mentioned, and that is
the imprisonment for the past 10 months of J.S. Tissainayagam, a
journalist, and N. Jashiharan, a publisher, and his wife, V. Valamathy.
They were arrested for articles critical of the government, and are
being held in violation of their right to freedom of expression.
Another of Sri Lankan's most respected journalists, Lasantha
Wickramatunga, was gunned down in broad daylight a few weeks ago.
According to Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights,
``[t]he killing of . . . Wickrematunge . . . was the latest blow to the
free expression of dissent in Sri Lanka. The searing article he wrote
prophesying his own murder is an extraordinary indictment of a system
corrupted by more than two decades of bloody internal conflict.'' The
High Commissioner noted that there have not been any prosecutions of
political killings, disappearances and other violations committed in
recent years. That in itself speaks volumes about the Sri Lankan
Government's credibility.
For many years, the United States and Sri Lanka have enjoyed good
relations. A close friend of mine, James Spain, was our Ambassador
there years ago. He often told me of his deep affection for the Sri
Lankan people, and of the country's extraordinary natural beauty.
When the tsunami crashed ashore in December 2004, a member of my
staff was on the island. The American people responded generously to
help Sri Lanka rebuild.
It has therefore been difficult for me to watch the conflict
intensify, the LTTE abuse civilians and fail to live up to its
commitments, and the government threaten to expel foreign diplomats,
aid agencies and journalists, and refuse appeals to permit independent
observers and aid workers access to areas where Tamil civilians are
trapped. And as reputable, courageous journalists have been arrested on
transparently political charges or assassinated.
The Sri Lanka Government will one day want the respect and support
of the United States. The same can be said of the LTTE, if and when it
renounces violence and becomes a legitimate political party. How they
respond to today's humanitarian appeals will weigh heavily on how the
United States responds when that day comes.
______
Response of Robert Dietz to Question Submitted by
Senator Richard G. Lugar
Question. Today, the Sri Lankan Embassy provided this committee
with a copy of a letter from Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister to our
Secretary of State. Please find the letter for your reference. The
letter states that ``freedom of the media and the freedom of expression
are ensured and the government has taken action to investigate such
cases whenever these rights and liberties have been curtailed.'' Could
you please help us understand the differences--and any points of
agreement--between this assertion and the testimony that you have
proveded today?
Answer. The Sri Lankan Constitution does indeed provide for a free
press and over the years there has been a dynamic media presence in the
country, though one which has often been under fire. What I tried to
press home in my testimony before the committee is that since President
Mahinda Rajapaksa first came to power as Prime Minister in 2004 and
then when he assumed the Presidency in 2005 and until now, we have see
an increase in the number of attacks directed against journalists who
are critical of the government.
It is a sad list and a long one, so I will just direct you to our
Web site.
While we had long become accustomed to seeing openly partisan
minority Tamil journalists attacked and even killed, and which we
regularly reported, what we have seen in recent years is an attack on
more main stream journalists who dare criticize the military's war
effort or report on corruption within the armed forces. There is a
fairly clear correlation between the number of deaths and attacks and
acts harassment, intimidation against people as well as attacks on
printing presses, or more recently, on the main control room of Sirasa
TV.
We see a direct correlation between the government's efforts to win
an all out military solution against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam and a heightened effort to silence critics of any kind on the
home front.
Please understand that we have kept ourselves apart from the debate
of the value of the government's war effort--what we are concerned
about is the government's use of death and intimidation to control
public opinion at home.
______
Response of Dr. Anna Neistat to Question Submitted by
Senator Richard G. Lugar
Question. Your testimony includes specific recommendations
including:
``The immediate creation of humanitarian corridors to allow
civilians trapped by the fighting to travel to areas away from
the fighting'';
Allowing ``humanitarian agencies to . . . reach all
civilians in need'' and;
``Permit international monitoring of the screening
procedures to prevent arbitrary arrests and `disappearances' of
the detained individuals.''
Could you please describe why there may be resistance to these
recommendations and help us understand under what circumstances that
the LTTE and the government would be open to implementation of your
recommendations?
Answer. Although the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) claims
to be the ``sole representative'' of the Sri Lankan Tamil people, they
unfortunately have a long history of acting with little regard for the
well-being of this population. The LTTE has frequently targeted Tamil
political parties for attack, assassinated Tamil politicians,
journalists, and human rights advocates, and mistreated the civilian
population under their control. They have forcibly recruited Tamils
into their forces, including children, who have been used in combat
roles. While one would hope that the LTTE would give greater
consideration to the civilian population during the current fighting,
they have showed no signs of doing so. They have forced displaced
persons to retreat along with their forces, deployed their forces near
civilians thus effectively using them as human shields, and in several
instances shot at civilians trying to flee to the safety of government-
controlled areas.
While the LTTE has never paid much heed to the concerns of foreign
governments or human rights organizations, they have at times responded
to the entreaties of the large Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. This has at
times resulted in the reduced use of child soldiers and in curtailing
extortion in foreign countries to raise money. It would be extremely
helpful at this time if the diaspora were to call upon the LTTE to
demonstrate greater regard for the civilian population still under
their control.
We are also concerned with the Sri Lankan Government's response to
the humanitarian crisis. The creation of humanitarian corridors clearly
requires cooperation from both sides to the conflict. However, there
are certain steps that the Sri Lankan Government can and should be
urged to take even in the absence of an agreement with the LTTE.
One such step had been the creation of ``safe zones'' in LTTE-
controlled areas where civilians could move to escape the fighting.
Unfortunately, instead of ensuring that civilians in such zones enjoyed
greater safety and are protected against attacks, the Sri Lankan Armed
Forces have repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled such areas. We urge
that Sri Lankan forces strictly honor such safe zones. Before the
government attacks LTTE forces that may have entered such zones, the
government should first make clear that these areas no longer have
protected status and allow civilians sufficient time to leave them
before carrying out attacks.
Additionally, the U.S. Government should work with other cochairs
of the Tokyo Donors Conference and the Sri Lankan Government to seek
alternative evacuation routes for civilians, such as by sea, and offer
logistical support for such evacuations. So far, the government has
only permitted a very limited evacuation conducted by the International
Committee of the Red Cross.
The government's opposition to access to humanitarian agencies and
international human rights monitors in conflict areas can be traced to
a broader government effort in the past 2 years to avoid any kind of
independent scrutiny of its actions, either from civil society in Sri
Lankan or international efforts. This increasing closure of
``democratic space'' in Sri Lanka is also evident in the increasing
repression of the local media and broader restrictions and criticisms
of humanitarian efforts in the country. Unfortunately these state
actions have the effect of harming the population that needs the most
help--displaced persons caught up in the war zones. But it also harms
democratic society generally in Sri Lanka and undermines hopes that an
end to the conventional war with the LTTE will result in government
policies that benefit the entire Sri Lankan population, including the
very real concerns of the Tamil population throughout the country.
The Sri Lankan Government has shown some greater recognition in the
past few weeks that the needs of the displaced population fleeing LTTE-
controlled areas is immense and that the government cannot provide the
necessary humanitarian relief. As a result it is slowly permitting
greater access of humanitarian agencies to displaced persons camps near
Vavuniya. But humanitarian agencies and governments providing
assistance are rightly concerned that these militarized camps do not
become long-term detention centers for civilians. Beyond the provision
of immediate relief, we urge that the United States and other concerned
states only offer long-term assistance if the government treats
internally displaced in accordance with the U.N. Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement. That means turning the camps into civilian
facilities, permitting those at the camps full freedom of movement, and
facilitating the safe and voluntary return of displaced persons at the
earliest moment possible. More broadly, the U.S. Government should make
it very clear--and encourage other concerned government and
international institutions to do so--that future financial aid to the
government, beyond what is immediately for emergency needs--will be
contingent on the government's commitment to abiding by international
human rights standards.
______
Response of Robert Dietz to Question Submitted by
Senator Robert Menendez
Question. Journalists and independent observers do not have access
to conflict areas to accurately report information about the situation
of civilians. What can be done to provide greater access for
journalists and independent observers?
Answer. Conflict zones are dangerous but reporting from them is
crucial to our understanding of how a war is being conducted. I have
been a cameraman, a producer and a reporter in combat situations
ranging from East Africa to Lebanon during the Israeli invasion of 1982
to the fall of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986. The work
comes with great risk, but it was always a risk my colleagues and I
were willing to take.
When governments claim they are acting out of concern for the
safety of reporters, they are actually infringing on one of the basic
fundamentals of free speech--open access to information. No matter how
dangerous, no government has the right to restrict access to a battle
zone--it is up to the journalists to weigh the dangers they are facing
and judge whether or not to attempt to cover a story. The Committee to
Protect Journalists rejects efforts by any government or agency to stop
reporters from doing their job--the answer is as simple as that.
Governments seldom stop journalists from reporting out of concern for
their safety. They almost always do it out of the desire to control
potentially damaging information from a battle zone.
We base our opinions on firm legal ground. According to the 1949
Geneva Conventions journalists wearing military uniform and attached to
regular armed forces are entitled to the same protection as soldiers.
They have POW status, and cannot be executed as spies. Journalists who
are not embedded with military forces are entitled to the same
protection as all civilians; they cannot be targeted, but can be
subject to laws of the country including espionage. U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1738, adopted December 23, 2006, affirms the rights
of journalists in conflict zones.
______
Responses of Dr. Anna Neistat to Questions Submitted by
Senator Robert Menendez
Question. Journalists and independent observers do not have access
to conflict areas to accurately report information about the situation
of civilians.
What can be done to provide greater access for journalists
and independent observers?
Answer. Virtually all democratic governments have permitted
journalists to have access to war zones. This access of course can be
restricted for specific security concerns. Unfortunately the Sri Lankan
Government's blanket ban of independent journalists traveling into
combat areas, as well as overbroad restrictions on places where
displaced persons have fled, has meant that the public, both in Sri
Lanka and abroad, has been largely prevented from obtaining independent
informa-
tion about the conduct of this war, and the effects of the fighting on
the civilian population.
The Sri Lankan Government has also limited access to international
humanitarian and human rights organizations. Not only can such
organizations play a valuable role in ensuring that accurate
information about the situation gets public attention, but the presence
of monitors can have a valuable deterrent role in preventing abuses by
both sides to the conflict.
The Sri Lankan Government does itself a disservice by insisting it
is protecting the rights of all civilians caught up in the war zone,
and blaming the LTTE for all civilian casualties, but then failing to
allow independent observers to impartially assess the situation. The
government can rectify this situation immediately by permitting access,
with narrowly tailored time and place restrictions for genuine security
reasons, to the media and humanitarian and human rights organizations.
Question. There have been reports that the Sri Lankan Government
plans to hold displaced Tamils in ``welfare villages'' in Vavuniya and
Mannar. The displaced people will have no choice but to stay in the
``welfare villages'' for a period of up to 3 years.
What further details do you have concerning these ``welfare
villages,'' and what the Sri Lankan Government seeks to
accomplish by holding Tamils in such camps?
Is it likely that the camps will push moderates into the
arms of the LTTE?
What steps can the United States take to ensure that
displaced people in the camps are adequately cared for?
Answer. The Sri Lankan Government has a long history of detaining
persons displaced from combat areas--particularly Tamils and Muslims--
in what are effectively internment centers and holding them for years.
Thousands of Muslims who were displaced in 1990 remain in government
detention centers today. While the government may have immediate
security concerns regarding any displaced population, long-term
restrictions on the right to freedom of movement are a serious
violation of Sri Lankans' basic rights under international law. The Sri
Lankan Government has promised a quick return of most of those
displaced by the current fighting--by the end of the year. Given the
Sri Lankan Government past practices and the current treatment of these
persons, it is essential that the U.S. Government keep a close eye on
developments and speak out as necessary.
Currently, all displaced persons are subjected to indefinite
confinement in de facto internment camps, which the government calls
transit sites, ``welfare centers,'' or ``welfare villages.'' As of
February 16, 2009, eight sites near Vavuniya alone had been allocated
for newly arriving displaced persons. Local authorities were not
prepared for the large influx of displaced persons and did not allow
international agencies to adequately prepare the sites. Relief agencies
were struggling to set up additional shelter, water, and sanitation
facilities at the last moment, as the displaced persons were being
brought to the sites.
Sri Lankan authorities have ignored calls from the international
community to ensure the civilian nature of the camps. The perimeters of
the sites are secured with coils of barbed wire, sandbags, and machine-
gun nests. There is a large military presence inside and around the
camps. Several sources reported to Human Rights Watch the presence of
plainclothes military intelligence and paramilitaries in the camps. A
U.N. official in Vavuniya told Human Rights Watch that she and
colleagues have seen members of paramilitary groups in different camps.
Displaced persons confined in the camps enjoy no freedom of
movement and are not allowed any contact with the outside world. Unlike
the internally displaced brought to Mannar district in 2008, some of
whom were granted passes to leave the camp for a day to go to work, the
displaced persons in Vavuniya camps have not to date been allowed to
leave the sites on their own. While many of the displaced persons have
families in Vavuniya, their relatives have not been allowed to visit
them in the camps. Relatives come to the camp sites, trying to find
their family members and communicate with them through the fence and
barbed wire surrounding the sites, yet they are often chased away by
soldiers.
The treatment of the displaced Tamil population--and all Tamils in
Sri Lanka--is extremely important for the future of the country. There
are genuine grievances that need to be met and it is essential for the
government to address them in a serious way. But it is important to
recognize that all Tamil dissatisfaction does not necessarily play out
in greater violence--many Tamils do not support the LTTE or their
tactics and want to play a part in a genuinely democratic Sri Lankan
society that recognizes and protects the rights of all its citizens. To
ensure that this population plays as productive role as possible, the
government needs to send a message that it values all members of Sri
Lankan society. This includes those most affected, and harmed, by the
armed conflict.
The U.S. can do its part by supporting, as it can, state actions
that will develop a fully multiethnic Sri Lanka and objecting to those
steps that go contrary to that fundamental goal. This might entail
providing development assistance that would allow displaced persons to
return to their old homes, but rejecting long-term aid to ``welfare
centers.'' It also means providing support to Sri Lankan civil society,
which has played an essential role in promoting a multiethnic society,
and criticizing state repression against Tamil journalists and human
rights defenders.
Question. Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and
Amnesty International have advocated for a humanitarian cease-fire to
allow aid workers and human rights monitors into the region.
Can the U.S. effectively pressure the Sri Lankan Government
to accept a cease-fire, and to allow humanitarian aid,
journalists, and human rights monitors into the conflict zone
and into refugee camps?
Answer. While Human Rights Watch has urged the creation of
humanitarian corridors in accordance with international humanitarian
law, it is beyond the organization's mandate to call for cease-fires of
any kind. Certainly the U.S. Government should make it clear to Colombo
that continued good relations with the United States depends in part on
Sri Lanka's compliance with international humanitarian law and taking
necessary steps to uphold its tradition of being an open and democratic
society.
Question. Over 2,000 Tamil civilians have been killed since the
military onslaught began. The Sri Lankan Government has ordered all
medical personnel in the Vanni region to evacuate, and its military has
repeatedly attacked hospitals. Doctors Without Borders has teams of
doctors and equipment standing by to provide life-saving assistance,
but the government continues to refuse to allow them into the region.
Civilians trapped in the fighting have been repeatedly bombed at the
hospitals where they were receiving treatment and in the ``safe zones''
where they took refuge; these Tamils need immediate and urgent medical
treatment.
In light of these events, is it accurate to say that the Sri
Lankan Government has failed in its responsibility to protect
Tamil civilians? If the government has failed in this
responsibility, should the United States seek to have the
situation in Sri Lanka placed on the agenda of the United
Nations Security Council?
Answer. The Sri Lankan Government is failing in its responsibility
to protect Tamil civilians, and the crisis is continuing. Reports from
the ground by independent observers indicate that civilian casualties
continue to rise. The seriousness of the situation points to the need
for the humanitarian situation to be placed on the agenda of the U.N.
Security Council, and we would urge the U.S. to seek to do so.
Question. In your view, would the threat of economic sanctions,
and/or the promise of economic assistance, be effective in shifting Sri
Lanka's policy on humanitarian assistance, and encouraging a regional
peace agreement with the Tamils?
Answer. The need for humanitarian assistance to reach the displaced
civilian population in the Vanni is extremely urgent. We believe that
the best way for the United States to encourage rapid assistance to
this population would be to offer logistical support to the government,
both in providing assistance and helping civilians leave the combat
area, particularly by sea.
______
Letter From Ilankai Tamil Sangam, USA, Inc., Association of Tamils of
Sri Lanka in the USA, Chesterfield, NJ
February 18, 2009.
memorandum on the protection of tamil civilians in ne sri lanka
We, the Tamil American community are greatly concerned for the
safety of the Tamil civilians in the North East of Sri Lanka. We are
particularly concerned for the more than 250,000 Tamil internally
displaced persons (IDPs) who are living in areas not controlled by the
government and are now in the middle of a war zone with almost no
humanitarian assistance.
We strongly support Secretary Clinton's call for both the
Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) to agree to a temporary no-fire period in order for aid to reach
the suffering population and for the ICRC to evacuate urgent medical
cases. We also urge that humanitarian workers be given immediate full
access to the conflict area in order to get food and medical assistance
to the trapped civilians. Furthermore, we insist that safe zones be
negotiated by both parties and that these safe zones involve U.N.
monitoring mechanisms to provide assurance of compliance.
Though there is an acute food and medical shortage, in addition to
continuous shelling and bombing inside the LTTE-controlled areas
(resulting in scores killed every day), the majority of these 250,000
civilians are reluctant to cross over to the government-controlled
areas.
On January 23, Stephanie Nolen, a journalist from the Globe and
Mail wrote: ``The assumption is that all the civilians in the north
would flee if they could . . . [and while] a few have managed to get
out . . . awaiting a long and unpleasant `security screening' . . .
they will live behind thick coils of razor wire, forbidden to leave.
But no one here is talking about the other line in Vavuniya, the one
five times as long--the line of people desperate to go back the other
way. No one admits what it says about the chances for real peace in Sri
Lanka that so many people see more hope for their families in a war
zone than in the calm of the government-held side.''
Robert Evans, the chairman of the European Parliament Delegation
for Relations with South Asia reiterated this on February 14th when he
noted: ``The Sri Lankan government has urged Tamil civilians to come
over to their side for protection, but there is a strong reticence and
fear of such a move. The Tamil people have seen so much death and
destruction. They are terrified of Sri Lankan troops and their `holding
camps,' with all the stories of assaults and rape, not to mention the
different language and religion which divides the Hindu Tamils from the
Buddhist Sinhalese troops.''
Most of the civilians at risk have lived in LTTE-controlled areas
for a generation. Although there have been allegations that it is the
LTTE which is putting these civilians at risk, it is counter-intuitive
that the LTTE would be harming some of the very people who have been
closest to them. In parallel, these civilians are viewed as threats by
the GoSL and it is in the GoSL's interests to eliminate as many as
possible away from the eyes of the world.
The U.N., India, and the GoSL have called for the immediate
evacuation of Tamil civilians from the conflict zone for their safety,
yet Tamil civilians are reluctant
to move into the GoSL's territory. Civilians fear entering government
territory because:
(1) There are credible reports in the media that numerous civilians
are being killed or disappeared when they are ``screened'' by the mono-
ethnic armed forces on entering government territory.
(2) Civilians are placed in internment camps after being screened,
where they are guarded by the mono-ethnic armed forces and are at
further risk of human rights abuses and neglect. The GoSL is asking for
aid to keep these camps open for up to 3 years.
For the following reasons, the evacuation of Tamil civilians into
government internment camps would worsen their situation:
1. Safely evacuating 250,000 civilians will be impossible when the
GoSL and the LTTE are firing at each other. Hence the primary need for
a ``no-fire period.''
2. Evacuation may well turn the 250,000 or more civilians into
permanent IDPs who will be unable to return to their homes, but who
will have to live in internment camps, euphemistically termed ``Welfare
Centres,'' like the 10,000 Tamil civilians who have been detained near
the northern city of Vavuniya for many years without any freedom of
movement.
3. Amnesty International says, ``Given past experience, there are
credible fears that those confined in transit centers could be
vulnerable to enforced disappearances or extrajudicial executions, as
well as increased targeting of persons, including arbitrary detention
and harassment on an ethnic basis. There have been reports of several
hundred cases of disappearance in Sri Lanka since 2006, many of them in
government-controlled areas.'' Tamil civilians have been killed or
disappeared at the rate of on average six a day for the past year and a
half.
4. Though the GoSL says the U.N. and ICRC have access to these
camps, in practice this has not happened.
5. Uprooting over 250,000 ethnic Tamil civilians from their areas
of habitation and livelihood and placing them in internment camps with
little hope of return is potentially a form of ethnic cleansing.
6. The vast majority of the civilians of Vanni area have fled from
the GoSL armed forces into the 100 sq. km. LTTE-occupied area. If these
civilians are placed in internment camps, much of the ``cleansed''
Vanni will be turned into a High Security Zone, similar to many parts
of the Jaffna Peninsula and the East, which are swept free of civilians
and are patrolled by the mono-ethnic Sri Lankan armed forces. The fear
is also that those areas not declared High Security Zones will be
colonized by Sinhalese with GoSL assistance.
For these reasons strengthening the safe zone is a much better
alternative to evacuation.
We ask the U.S. Government to assure the protection of our
relatives, friends, and neighbors in the North East of Sri Lanka by
helping to:
Initiate a cease-fire;
Negotiate a secure civilian safe zone with international
monitors;
Provide full immediate access for humanitarian goods, aid
workers, and the press;
End the blockade of goods and services to civilian areas;
Provide neutral international monitoring of the
``screening'' process and internment camps;
Dismantle the internment camps in a short period and assure
the return of civilians to their lands and homes.
Yours Sincerely,
Americans for Peace in Sri Lanka; Association of
Sri Lankan Tamils in the USA; Federation of
Tamils of North America; HELP Advocates Sri
Lanka; North Carolinians for Peace; People
for Equality and Relief in Lanka; Tamils
Against Genocide; Tamils for Obama; and
World Tamil Organization.
______
Prepared Statement of Miriam A. Young, Coordinator, U.S. NGO Forum on
Sri Lanka
Thank you for the opportunity to submit my statement to the
official record of today's hearing on the situation in Sri Lanka. I am
very pleased that this hearing is taking place. In the 20 years that I
have been working on the issue I do not recall a time when a full
hearing was dedicated to Sri Lanka. It is an indication of the
seriousness of the crisis in the country today.
I have worked on human rights, humanitarian, and conflict issues in
South and Southeast Asia for two decades. I have worked with Cambodian
refugees, directed health programs for Afghans in Peshawar, Pakistan,
raised awareness about the situation in Burma and West Papua, advocated
for the rights of the Uighurs in western China and led delegations to
witness the referendum in East Timor. All of them, including that of
Sri Lanka, have suffered from a lack of attention by the international
community because they do not hold strategic interest for the great
powers.
Sri Lanka does not have the international profile of Gaza, Sudan,
Zimbabwe, or the Congo. But the atrocities taking place there are every
bit as horrible as in any of these countries well covered in the media.
What is perhaps the most well-known aspect of the war in Sri Lanka
is the ruthless efficiency of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,
LTTE, who have perfected the use of the suicide bomber. The long
running conflict developed following successive failures to address
minority rights through the political process. Unfortunately for Sri
Lanka's citizens and possibilities of the war's resolution, the roots
of the conflict have been lost in the rhetoric of the ``war against
terror,'' to the extent that Sri Lanka's Government has convinced its
own citizens and much of the international community that it is
fighting a terrorist war.
humanitarian catastrophe
A decade ago the International Committee of the Red Cross termed
the conflict in Sri Lanka the ``No Mercy War.'' There is no truer
description of the tragedy that is taking place now, as the government
forces are on the verge of victory, squeezing the LTTE into an ever
smaller section on the northeast coast of the area called the Vanni. A
quarter of a million Tamil civilians, most of whom have been displaced
from their homes multiple times, are caught between the two armies.
Humanitarian agencies, on which these internally displaced persons, or
IDPs, depended, have been denied access since September. The civilians
have no where left to run, and are directly in the crossfire. Due to
growing cries of concern, the government declared safe zones, to which
some people were able to flee, but then ignored its own promise and
continued to bomb and shell the areas. Shells have landed on makeshift
hospitals, killing and maiming those already sick and injured.
There is no doubt that the LTTE have prevented the civilians from
leaving, effectively using them as human shields. They have forced
people to fight, and shot at those trying to escape the battle zone.
The government on its side, which is a sovereign state and resents
outside interference, is flouting international humanitarian law with
abandon--treating Tamil civilians who don't leave the area as LTTE
supporters and thus legitimate targets, preventing food and medicine
from reaching the civilians, detaining those who do escape in
internment camps, etc.
I would like to share a few anecdotes from my own recent
experience. I was in Colombo for a short period in January, arriving on
the day of the funeral of Lasantha Wickremetunge, the courageous editor
of the Sunday Leader newspaper and a critic of the government's
prosecution of the war. Lasantha was assassinated in broad daylight
near a high security zone in the capital. Several days after I left,
the editor of a Sinhalese newspaper was attacked on his way to work by
men on motorbikes, beaten and stabbed, and his wife injured while
trying to protect him. A week after my return I learned that eight
journalists had either left the country or were in hiding in fear for
their lives. Several of my Sri Lankan colleagues have received
threatening letters and phone calls, or been visited at night by masked
men on motorbikes. Some humanitarian workers have come down from the
north in tears over their inability to assist or protect anyone.
journalists and media freedom under siege
The climate for journalists is one of the most hostile anywhere in
the world. While foreign journalists are either denied visas to enter
the country or are denied access to the conflict zone, Sri Lankan
journalists risk their lives to report anything other than official
government propaganda. Sri Lanka ranks 165th out of 173 in the World
Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. As Sacha Guney, a
Canadian free lance journalist, puts it, ``Ruthless, effective control
of the media has meant that one of Asia's longest-running wars has run
its course out of sight of all but the soldiers, the unreachable
civilians in the crossfire, and the dead.''
J.S. Tissanaiyagam, a prominent Tamil journalist, was detained
almost 1 year ago under the country's Prevention of Terrorism Act and
held without charge for 5 months. He was then charged under the PTA for
an article criticizing the government for its failure to protect
civilians in war zones. Despite international pressure to release him,
he remains in prison and has been declared a Prisoner of Conscience by
Amnesty International.
Because of the difficulty of access for journalists, most tend to
report the official statements of both warring sides with the caveat
that the information cannot be verified. A figure of 70,000 killed over
the course of the war has been used consistently. With large numbers of
Sinhalese troops being killed (but not reported), tens of LTTE cadre
reported killed daily by the Defense Ministry, and at least a thousand
Tamil civilians killed just during the month of January, not to mention
ongoing disappearances throughout the country, this number indicates
serious underreporting. Credible firsthand information is available,
both from religious organizations and Sri Lankan humanitarian workers,
who are risking their lives to get information out about what is
happening.
the roots of the conflict
Sri Lanka's troubles are rooted in the practices of its former
colonial power, Britain, and in unaddressed political and economic
injustices following independence in 1948. Unlike India, Sri Lanka did
not wage a violent struggle for independence. But members of the
Sinhalese majority in particular resented the long years under
colonialism that had deprived them of their language and culture, and
diminished the role of Buddhism in their society. Anti-Western
sentiment drove the development of a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist
ideology. However, what began as anti-Western sentiment and a search
for identity began to take on an anti-Tamil tone as well.
As in other colonies, the British had practiced a divide-and-rule
strategy, favoring the Tamil minority in education and positions in
their civil administration. Successive post independence Sinhalese
governments tried to reverse this perceived injustice, instituting
polices that increasingly put Tamils at a disadvantage for government
and professional positions. Some of the most polarizing moves were the
institution of the Sinhalese-only language act in 1956, regulations
that required Tamil students to achieve higher marks to qualify for
university admissions, and, in 1972, a new constitution which gave the
``foremost place'' to Buddhism. Tamil political parties tried to
redress through the political process, but to no avail. Communal
violence began in the late 1950s but had its worst outbreak in 1983 in
an anti-Tamil pogram that killed thousands.
Calls for greater autonomy for the Tamils led to calls for outright
secession. A number of armed Tamil groups formed, out of which the LTTE
emerged as the most militarily efficient, and the long war began.
Successive periods of peace talks foundered and collapsed for a variety
of reasons, with each party blaming the other. Each collapse led to a
resumption of hostilities more fierce and deadly than the last and
compounding the mistrust among the communities. The ruthlessness of the
LTTE overshadowed the unresolved legitimate grievances of the Tamil
population and enabled the Colombo government to sell its war as one to
rid the country of terrorists. The rights of the Muslim minority are
seldom even recognized.
The international community, focused on abuses of the LTTE, such as
conscription of children, came late to the realization that Sri Lanka's
security force had become a mirror image of its foe, engaging in
equally outrageous acts of violence such as killings, disappearances,
aerial bombing and shelling of civilian areas, and withholding of food
and medical supplies. The government also used the excuse of war to
limit democratic freedoms in all parts of the country.
the need of the hour
Over the past months the world has witnessed the increasing
humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. The diplomatic community has
expressed its concern for civilians caught up in the conflict, but the
time for expressions of concern is past as lives are literally being
blown apart each day. There are a variety of figures on the number of
civilian deaths, averaging 40-100 per day, but this seems very low. The
critical need of the hour must be to allow access by the U.N. and ICRC
to the civilians in order to provide the necessary space and to monitor
their passage away from the war zone. While some civilians have now
begun coming out, hundreds of thousands remain. Again, there are a
variety of figures on the number, from 350,000 estimated by aid
agencies last September, to 250,000 quoted by the U.N., to a mere
70,000 by the Sri Lanka Government.
Those civilians coming out are put through two screening processes,
and then brought to hospitals (severely under-staffed and -supplied) or
to so-called welfare camps where they have no freedom of movement. It
is imperative that the United Nations, the ICRC, and international aid
agencies have full access at all stages, both to assist with
humanitarian needs and also to provide protection for people who have
been terrorized by both of the combatants. Sustained vigilance and
pressure are needed to ensure that the displaced civilians are not
treated as prisoners and that they are allowed to return to their homes
as soon as possible.
political and institutional reform essential
Attention must also be paid to the aftermath of the war's outcome
for, as I made clear, this conflict is at its roots a political one,
and as such requires a political solution. The Rajapakse government has
made few concrete indications of its commitment to address the
political grievances of the Tamil minority. Statements by the army
commander, for example, that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese country, without
repudiation from the government, do not inspire confidence. Without
outside pressure, the danger exists that the government in Colombo will
not feel the need to genuinely work toward the institutional and
political reforms necessary if Sri Lanka is ever to enjoy a sustained
peace.
Reforms should include protection of minority rights, an end to
human rights violations including assassinations, disappearances, and
violence against the media, and an end to impunity. At present no
domestic institution can guarantee this, which means that some form of
international monitoring will be urgently required.
the u.s. role
Our Embassy in Colombo has been dedicated to helping find a
solution to the current crisis and should be applauded. But we need
active and sustained leadership from the top. Despite the Sri Lankan
Government's apparent disregard for diplomatic protocol--it has no
compunction in calling top U.N. officials terrorists and threatening to
expel foreign diplomats--it is a fact that the U.S. is one of the few
countries that still retains influence.
As a leading member of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. has the
leverage to demand action on an international level. It must use its
leadership to bring about a discussion in the Security Council that
will create the moral and political authority necessary to exert full
diplomatic pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure the
protection of the internally displaced persons and all its citizens.
Whether or not a country is of strategic interest on the global
stage, its citizens are no less entitled to the rights and protections
enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the
right to life. This is an opportunity for the new administration to
reassert this country's moral leadership on behalf of desperately
vulnerable people.
recommendations for u.s. policy
The United States should:
Call for an immediate cease-fire and insist on full access
to the internally displaced people by the U.N., ICRC, and
international humanitarian organizations to provide safe
passage out of the war zone and throughout the process of
assistance and resettlement.
Immediately call for a discussion of the situation in Sri
Lanka at the United Nations Security Council.
Press for a U.N. humanitarian assessment mission to the
north and for a Special Envoy of the Secretary General.
Support a special session of the Human Rights Council in
Geneva.
Use its good offices with India, Japan, China and other
nations to encourage the Government of Sri Lanka to adhere to
its commitments as a responsible member of the international
community.
Consider bilateral action such as withdrawal of IMET if the
Government of Sri Lanka continues to violate international
humanitarian law.
Review U.S. development assistance to ensure that it is
``conflict sensitive'' and does not contribute to government
policies that reassert existing power structures based on
violence and military or paramilitary rule or exacerbate deep
seated intercommunal tension.
______
Prepared Statement of Karen Parker, Attorney
Chairman Casey and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased that
you are concerned about the situation in Sri Lanka and have given me
this opportunity to provide the subcommittee with information regarding
this situation and my views on what United States might usefully do. By
way of introduction I am an attorney specializing in international
humanitarian (armed conflict) law and human rights. I have participated
in United Nations human rights forums since 1982, and have addressed
the situation in Sri Lanka since 1983 on behalf of a number of
nongovernmental organizations, most recently with the Association of
Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL) and International Educational Development
(IED). In 1987 I presented a statement to the House of Representatives
on the situation in Sri Lanka.\1\ The views expressed in this statement
are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of IED or AHL.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Application of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law to the
Situation in Sri Lanka: Hearings on Sri Lanka before the Subcomm. on
Asian and Pacific Affairs of the House Comm. on Foreign Affairs, 100th
Cong., 1st Sess. (1987).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
brief overview of current crisis
The 26-year-old armed conflict between the armed forces of the
Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has
reached a phase that can only be called genocide-like and catastrophic
for the Tamil people in the north and east of the island.\2\ As there
are many incidents on a daily basis and the situation is extremely
volatile, it is not possible to be either timely or even accurate as
far as facts and figures. Accordingly, this overview should be accepted
as snapshots indicating the urgency of the situation. Even so, they
clearly indicate genocidal acts.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ This is not to say that there are not serious abuses of Tamils
in other areas, which, as they are taking place in the context of the
armed conflict, also indicate serious violations of humanitarian law.
\3\ Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan stated many
times that whenever there is an ethnic conflict, the question of
genocide arises. In this situation there are elements such as direct
killings; imposing impossible conditions of life by severe restrictions
of food, water, medicines; killing humanitarian aid workers or driving
them out; and continuous anti-Tamil rhetoric at home and abroad.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Civilian casualties
While numbers vary substantially about the number of Tamil
civilians killed, the most reliable estimates indicate at least more
than 2,000 in the past several weeks alone. There are many thousands
with life-threatening injuries and the casualty figures can be expected
to rise dramatically in the next few weeks due to lack of medical care.
Casualty figures released in June 2008 for the war indicated more than
100,000 persons had died, the vast majority of them Tamil civilians.\4\
Recently, the health officer for Mullaitivu district indicated at least
40 Tamil civilians killed and 100 injured per day.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ See British Medical Journal, vol. 336, p1482-1486 (19 June
2008) (Zaid Obermeyer, et al.).
\5\ Randeep Ramesh, ``Sri Lanka Casualty Toll Rises,'' The
Guardian, Feb.14, 2009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
B. Illegal military operations
It is clear that hospitals, safety zones and civilian locales have
been targeted and the number of casualties indicate blatant disregard
for humanitarian law standards.\6\ In defending military actions
against hospitals, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse was filmed
stating: ``No hospitals should operate outside the safety zone . . .
everything beyond the safety zone is a legitimate target.'' \7\ This is
an egregious misstatement of the humanitarian law rules. In addition to
targeting hospitals outside the safety zone, there is also reliable
evidence that the government's forces continue to targeting hospitals,
schools and civilian dwellings inside the safety zones and in other
undefended civilian areas that under humanitarian law rules may not be
attacked.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ The protection of hospitals and medical care in general is the
foundation issue of the Geneva Conventions, beginning with the Geneva
Convention of 1864. Hospitals and other health facilities of both
combatants and civilians ``may in no circumstances be the object of
attack.'' Geneva Convention I, Art. 1; Geneva Convention IV, Art. 18.
Under current rules, parties to conflicts may establish safety zones,
which then become off-limits for military actions.
\7\ Interview on Skynet, Feb. 3, 2009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Status of relief providers
Because of fears of attacks as well as because of express orders to
leave, most relief agencies have left the LTTE-controlled areas and
much of the area newly under government control as well. It appears
that Tamils Rehabilitation Organization is the sole-remaining
international NGO in the LTTE-controlled area. The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was ordered out of the LTTE-
controlled areas by the government and its capacity to attend to the
needs of Tamil civilians not in the LTTE-controlled areas has been
dramatically reduced. Its last act was to transport several hundred
severely wounded out of the area by ship.
D. Shortages of food, water, and medical supplies
Tamil civilians both inside and outside of the LTTE-controlled
areas suffer severe shortages of food, water, and basic medical care.
The primary supplier of food
has been the World Food Programme. WFP's access to the Tamil-controlled
was curtailed some weeks ago, but after much international pressure on
the government, a food caravan was allowed into the LTTE-controlled
area (the Vanni) on February 19 containing 30 tons or an estimated 100
grams per person/per day, which is grossly inadequate. At the same
time, the available food and water at the government's IDP camps is
also grossly inadequate. UNICEF has had emergency feeding centers for
children who are grossly underweight and facing death by starvation,
but it is uncertain if they also have been cut back by government
edict. Tamils in the whole of the north and east have had their
subsistence farming and fishing severely curtailed for some time due to
the government's establishment of high security zones (HSZ) which
effectively remove prime farming and fishing areas from use. In this
manner, the Tamils in the North especially have already faced serious
food shortages--many Tamil children are developmentally delayed due to
lack of food. In any case, all evidence shows that the government is
denying food, water, and medicine to the Tamil civilian population,
prohibited by humanitarian law norms and an element of the crime of
extermination under the Statute and Elements of the International
Criminal Court.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ See ICC, Rome Statute, Articles 7(1)(b) and 7(2)(b); ICC
Elements, Article 7(1)(b).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
E. Status of Tamil civilians
There has been considerable controversy about the status of Tamil
civilians both in the LTTE-controlled areas and in the government
controlled areas. Estimates about the numbers of Tamils in the LTTE
area vary from 150,000 to over 300,000. At this point, with no
monitoring of the situation, it is impossible to tell, but given the
fact that fewer than 60,000 or so have crossed to the government side
according to the government's figures, the higher number is the more
likely one. Another controversy is that there are accusations that the
LTTE is not letting civilians flee and that the government is
preventing people from entering into its area. Again, with no
witnesses, it is not possible to verify this accusation. However, it is
highly likely that many of Tamil civilians in the LTTE-controlled areas
would be hesitant to turn themselves over to what they consider an
enemy government.\9\ Many of those in the Vanni had come there the past
few years after abuses in the government-controlled areas such as
Jaffna and Trincomalee. Prior to the recent upheaval, monitors who
surveyed check points both ways found that many entering the Vanni had
lost relatives to the ``white vans,'' the vehicles that roam the street
and seize people who are rarely seen again.\10\ Others had been
arrested and tortured at government police stations. The war began, of
course, after the Tamil people lost faith in the national government to
protect their rights, and has been fueled by continued human rights and
humanitarian law violations against them. Indeed, more than one-third
of the Tamil civilian population on the island now forms the more than
1.3 million persons in the burgeoning Tamil diaspora.\11\ Those in the
LTTE-controlled area also are aware of the IDP camps, and know that
when they cross the line, that they will be sent to a camp. What is
apparent is that those crossing into the government-controlled area are
in severe need of both food and water.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ See, i.e., Robert Evans, MEP, ``Who Can Protect Tamil
Civilians,'' The Independent, Feb. 14, 2009: ``Whilst the Sri Lankans
claim that they are merely trying to eliminate terrorism, the real
victims are, as ever, the civilians trapped by the fighting. All the
evidence suggests that unless the international community acts very
soon, about a quarter of a million people could be caught in a ghastly
bloodbath. The Sri Lankan government has urged Tamil civilians to come
over to their side for protection, but there is a strong reticence and
fear of such a move. The Tamil people have seen so much death and
destruction. They are terrified of Sri Lankan troops and their `holding
camps,' with all the stories of assaults and rape, not to mention the
different language and religion which divides the Hindu Tamils from the
Buddhist Sinhalese troops.''
\10\ According to United Nations figures, Sri Lanka has one the
highest numbers of disappeared persons, the vast majority of which are
Tamils.
\11\ These Tamils are what are called ``Eelam'' Tamils--Tamils who
have lived and governed themselves in the north and east of Sri Lanka
for nearly two thousand years. There are also Tamils in Sri Lanka who
were brought by the British from India's Tamil Nadu. Usually referred
to as the plantation Tamils, they are not part of the conflict,
although they may sympathize with the Eelam Tamils, as do the Tamil
people in India's Tamil Nadu.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is also controversy over the government's plans for Tamils
leaving the Tamil-controlled areas. The government originally announced
that they would be kept in detention camps for 3 years, but after a
rather strong reaction from the international community, especially
from certain U.N. officials and the U.K., the government is now
claiming that Tamil civilians would be in camps for a shorter,
unspecified time. Obviously, those crossing the line would be very
nervous to express their opinion freely while in camps, and are likely
to say whatever will
keep them the safest under the circumstances, as commonly occurs in
this type of situation.
F. Weaponry
There is strong evidence that the government forces may be using
either illegal weapons or legal weapons in an illegal manner. A recent
charge was made that 30 families in a safety zone were killed by
``bunker buster'' bombs. Without proper investigation, it is not
possible to verify this or to know, if used, the bunker busters are
B61-11s or the older B61-7s from the United States arsenals, or whether
they are of different origin. The photographic evidence of cluster bomb
casings against civilians is inconclusive--it is obvious that the
markings on the cases is in Russian, but less clear whether the
photographed casings were from cluster bombs or some other munitions.
It is unknown if the Russian Federation supplied these munitions or if
another county did. There appears to be reliable evidence of the use of
white phosphorus as weapons rather than tracers, or that white
phosphorus was used with disregard for possible civilian casualties.
There is also photographic evidence of the use of fire bombs against
Tamils in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). The Government
of Sri Lanka has received Dvora patrol/attack boats from Israel, MIG-
27s from Ukraine, military assistance and arms from Pakistan and
military assistance (and possibly weaponry) from Iran and possibly the
Russian Federation.
G. Monitoring
The government has refused any monitoring of the conflict by
international actors and organizations and has prevented the media from
going to the war area. Note that former President Clinton and former
U.N. Secretary General Annan were not allowed to the Tamil-controlled
areas following the tsunami, and, except for the ICRC, now forced out,
and one or two U.N. officials, no other U.N. mandate holders have been
allowed to that area. Former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Louise Arbour was allowed to travel to the North in 2007, but not to
Tamil-controlled areas. Her visit to Jaffna was heavily controlled by
Sri Lanka authorities, and she apparently was not able to meet with
Tamil civilians in private. There is a clear intent to prevent anyone
is a position to act from meeting with the LTTE leaders or the people
who live in the LTTE areas. The head of the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Holes, was allowed to
visit several of the IDP camps in Vavuniya during his just-finished
trip, but he was not allowed to circulate freely and was accompanied by
the President's brother. In the best of circumstances, this would not
be conducive to a fair evaluation of the situation. Further, he was
called a ``terrorist'' by Sinhala politicians following his previous
visit in August 2007 when he commented on the high number of killings
of humanitarian workers aiding the Tamil population, so he is apt to be
cautious. A significant concern is that the interpreter from Tamil to
English during Mr. Holmes visit to persons in IDP camps was a senior
minister in the Rajapakse administration, and there is no way to verify
what interviewees actually said.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ At the time of that visit, more than 60 aid workers had been
killed in about 1\1/2\ years, the highest in any current conflict.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
H. Attacks on media
In the past few years there have been assassinations of many of the
major Tamil journalists, or journalists that are considered
``friendly'' to Tamils by the government. The most recent victim of
this was Lasantha Wickrematunge, killed on January 8, 2009. Mr.
Wickrematunge, a Time Magazine freelancer and the editor of The Sunday
Leader, was an outspoken critic of the Government of Sri Lanka. In an
interview with the BBC's Chris Morris about Mr. Wickrematunge's death,
Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse stated that dissent or criticism
in time of war is treason. Chris Morris fled Sri Lanka on February 2,
2009, after being called an LTTE supporter by the Defense Secretary.
Dozens more have fled since then, many receiving aid from international
media NGOs. In 2008, 12 journalists were killed in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka
was identified by Time Magazine as No. 3 on the list of underreported
stories in 2008 and claimed the war was deadlier than Afghanistan.
international responses to the crisis
There have been a number of actions by both governments and
international officials since the crisis began in January, although
since the Rajapakse administration began, there has been increased
scrutiny of the long war, especially since January 2008 when President
Rajapakse announced that he was suspending the then-5-year-old cease-
fire agreement. For example, there was a special debate on the Tamil
genocide in the House of Commons U.K. in October, followed by an
adjournment debate in the House of Commons on December 18, 2008.\13\ On
January 23, 2009, Germany called for a cease-fire. Australia has
indicated that it will provide an additional 4 million Australian
dollars. The EU issued a call for a cease-fire on February 23, 2009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ A brief summary of some recent actions undertaken by the U.K.
was transmitted by Andrew Dinsmore MP (Hendon) to one of his
constituents, including U.K. actions urging a cease-fire, and pressing
the Sri Lankan authorities on access for organizations delivering
humanitarian relief to be both improved and more predictable. There has
been direct communication by Prime Minister Brown, with follow up by
David Milliband, to President Rajapakse encouraging cooperation with
the ICRC and U.N. The U.K. Government is doubling its recent
humanitarian aid, and cooperating with the U.N. in the Emergency
Response Fund.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A number of international personages have also called for a cease-
fire and a settlement of the conflict through negotiations. Recently
Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta offered to mediate. Nobel Laureates
Desmond Tutu and Martti Ahtisaari have recently spoken out about the
need for a negotiated political settlement.
Within the U.N. system, Walter Kalin, the U.N. Independent Expert
on Internally Displaced Persons issued a statement of concern on
December 23, 2008. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Advisor to the
Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict issued a statement on
January 21, 2009, and another on February 20, 2009. Navi Pillay, the
High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement on January 29,
2009. On February 9, 2009, ten mandate holders under the U.N. Human
Rights Council issued a statement.\14\ OCHA posted a special report on
February 10, 2009, in which it indicated that the Office of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Human Rights was preparing to address the needs
of up to 100,000 IDP and others. UNICEF and the World Food Programme
are actively involved with providing relief in Sri Lanka, although the
two specialized agencies cannot operate freely in the Tamil areas and
the Tamil-controlled areas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ The statement was issued by experts Sehaggya (human rights
defenders), La Rue (freedom of expression on opinion, Corcuera Cabezul
(involuntary disappearances), Castrillo (arbitrary detention), Grover
(the right to health), Despouy (the independence of justice),
deSchutter (the right to food), Alston (the right to life), Nowak
(torture), and Rolnik (housing).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A recent request by Mexico to address Sri Lanka in the Security
Council was rebuffed by the Russian Federation. Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon claimed that he could not ask the Security Council to address
the issue because it was not on the agenda, although Article 99 of the
U.N. Charter clearly gives him the authority to do so and he has acted
under Article 99 authority in the past.
The Tamil diaspora has responded to the crisis with many
demonstrations. For example, there have been recent demonstrations in
South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Washington, DC, New York, San
Francisco, London, Paris, and Geneva. In Canada there have been several
massive demonstrations, including a ``human chain'' that surrounded a
large part of downtown Toronto.
united states policies
United States had little interest and involvement in post-colonial
Sri Lanka until the Reagan administration, even though there were many
disturbances between Sinhalas and Tamils from the beginning of that
period, including four or five widespread massacres of Tamils by
Sinhala mobs. Regretfully, United States policies that began under the
Reagan administration have been unhelpful in resolving this situation.
In 1987 India found out about President Reason's interest in developing
Trincomalee Harbor to accommodate the United States Navy: a deal had
been nearly worked out with President Jeyewardene. Wanting to prevent
this, India entered into the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1987) and attached
a letter of annexure indicating that nothing would transpire with
Trincomalee that was against the wishes of India. There was perhaps a
tactical pause under the Clinton administration. After the events of
September 11, the Bush administration looked again at Trincolamee and
there are suggestions that Palaly Airfield was also under
consideration. Both of these are in the Tamil areas, so in order for
possible bases to be secure, the Tamil question would have to be
resolved.\15\ However, instead of taking a leadership role in resolving
the conflict with cooperation of the cochairs and the Sri Lankan
Monitoring Mission, the Bush administration converted the armed
conflict in ``terrorism/counterterrorism.'' Thus the conflict was no
longer reviewed under prevailing humanitarian law, the result of which
has substantially prolonged the conflict and has done considerable
damage to humanitarian law itself. Of course, false labeling of armed
conflicts as ``terrorism/counterterrorism'' does not make the world any
safer from actual terrorists and, with the demise of humanitarian law
protections usually results in many more victims of armed conflicts
than there would otherwise be. Sadly, this is the case in Sri Lanka.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ The importance of Trincomalee was one of the topics under
discussion in the Adjournment debate of December 18, 2008. The debate
is on the U.K. Parliament's webcam. That the Bush administration was
seeking these military bases may be a reason the Russian Federation has
made overtures to the Rajapakse administration of late and blocked
Security Council attention to the matter. There apparently is an MOU
between the Bush administration and President Rajapakse regarding
Trincomalee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is clear that since 1982 the LTTE has met all criteria for
combatant status according to humanitarian law norms: They have an
identifiable chain of command; they are in uniform and use the weapons
and the materiel of war; they have ground, sea and air forces; they
have exercised sufficient control over territory to be able to engage
in sustained and concerted military operations; and in all ways meet
combatant status criteria. This does not mean that to recognize the
existence of the armed conflict necessarily means a political approval
of their aims, which, as the LTTE states, is to ensure sufficient
autonomy if not separation from Sinhala control so as to enable the
Tamil people to live in peace and security.\16\ Recognizing a war as a
war also does not extinguish the terrorism question: there is a rule in
the Geneva Conventions that prohibits ``measures of intimidation or
terrorism'' against the civilian population.\17\ However, if such
measures occur, this does not convert combatant forces to terrorists;
combatants remain under the protection and obligations of humanitarian
law as long as the conflict is occurring, and in certain cases, for
some time after the conclusion of hostilities. Both the LTTE and the
government forces may carry out any military operation that is not
prohibited in humanitarian law. Many of the military operations in this
war are legal, but those occurring now that target the Tamil civilian
population are not.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Their aims are identical to those of the Kosovans, who have
obtained the blessing of the United States to secede from Serbia. One
wonders, why the Kosovans and not the Tamils?
\17\ Geneva Convention IV, Art. 33. This is slightly augmented by
Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Conventions, Art. 36: ``Acts or
threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror
among the civilian population are prohibited.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The conversion of the war into ``terrorism/counterterrorism'' has
had a number of other serious consequences, one of which is the
distressful erosion in basic human rights and far too many ``shades of
gray'' in situations that are actually quite black and white.\18\ But
an even more serious consequence is that the Tamil people worldwide
have been so demonized by the constant inferences that ``Tamil = Tiger
= terrorist,'' mostly by the constant references to this by Sri Lanka's
President and other authorities, that Tamils have been intimidated and
have lost the key support of institutions and groups who ordinarily
would be sympathetic.\19\ Any public show of sympathy for Tamils is
fiercely and publicly countered by the government, targeting, inter
alia, more than a few Members of Congress in the United States and
members of Parliaments in numerous other countries. Sri Lanka
representatives try to intimidate NGOs at United Nations human rights
sessions.\20\ They also pursue Tamils in the diaspora, and even try to
prevent local authorities from issuing permits for Tamil
demonstrations. In the United States there is a mood that somehow the
Tamil people as a whole are an enemy of the United States. In my 27
years working on humanitarian law issues, I have never encountered a
situation where an ethnic group that has been the victim of the most
serious of human rights and humanitarian law violations becomes the
culprit--and in ways that are overtly racist. Indeed, it is not
possible for people to discuss any other group in this fashion without
receiving instant disapproval.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Treating persons suspected of being terrorists as being
Prisoners of War (Guantanamo comes to mind) and held under Geneva
Convention standards when they are clearly not captured combatants, for
example, is absurd: the ``war on terrorism'' is a rhetorical phrase,
not a factual one.
\19\ Note that even M.I.A., the Tamil rap star nominated for a
Golden Globe and an Oscar, was attacked by some for being proterrorism.
A college student in Canada told me that after the Harper government
came to power and ``listed'' the LTTE, a professor announced in one of
her classes that there was a terrorist in the room.
\20\ Note that some also raise the ``child soldier'' issue, which
further demonizes of the Tamil people although the charge is leveled at
the LTTE and others. However, the international minimum age for
soldiers as set out in the Geneva Conventions is 15, and those who
raise the issue are using age 18 as the minimum.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are some hopeful signs that the new United States
administration will play an affirmative role in the situation rather
than a grossly negative one. Both President Obama and Secretary of
State Clinton have made statements that indicate more careful
reflection on this and similar situations.
recommendations
1. The first thing that the United States should do is call for an
immediate cease-fire, and then should most forcefully present this to
the Rajapakse administration. While the Rajapakse administration has
stated as recently as a few days ago it would not do so, it is
difficult to imagine that with the combined force of the U.S., the rest
of the cochairs and the rest of the ``Western and Other'' bloc at the
U.N., Sri Lanka's main ``donor'' states, that Sri Lanka would be
defiant. While Sri Lanka may have received assurances from Iran and the
Russian Federation, for example, that they would cover Sri Lanka's
needs, it does not seem likely that they can substitute for the level
of aid from the Western bloc and Japan.
2. The United States should ensure that no state that receives
United States military assistance provides arms to the government
forces. The United States should also seek to stop arms delivery to the
Government of Sri Lanka by any other countries.
3. The United States should take a leadership role in ensuring that
the humanitarian needs of the Tamil civilians are met, that Tamil
civilians are not relocated to detention camps but are allowed freely
to resettle in their own locales, and that the human rights abuses
against them cease immediately. In particular, the United States should
ensure that its contribution to the rehabilitation of the Tamil areas
reflect a genuine desire to assist. The United States should ensure
that any funds donated by Tamil people to assist Sri Lanka Tamils that
have been ``frozen'' be made available for the purpose of assisting
these Tamils.
4. The United States should most forcefully insist that on-site
visits to any and all areas of Sri Lanka by U.N. officials or other
impartial persons take place, and that interpreters for such visits are
trained and impartial. The United States should also insist that Sri
Lanka allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to
expand her office in Sri Lanka.
5. The United States should ask the Government of Sri Lanka what
proposals they have for the resolution of the Tamil issue. The United
States should consult regularly with the leadership of the Tamil
diaspora, both in the United States and in other countries, to invite
comments and suggestions on proposals. The United States should
encourage the Government of Sri Lanka to accept the good offices of
mediators such as those mentioned above.
6. The United States should ensure that the Government of Sri Lanka
ceases all anti-Tamil rhetoric at home and abroad and that it finds a
way to prevent Sinhala political parties (such as the JHU) from also
engaging in anti-Tamil rhetoric that has so often incited Sinhala mob
attacks on Tamils and those perceived as ``pro-Tamil.'' The United
States should ensure that the Government of Sri Lanka ceases all acts
against Tamil American citizens or residents or anyone else perceived
as being ``pro-Tamil.''
7. The United States should reexamine its foreign policy objectives
in Sri Lanka and the area, and take steps to ensure that United States
policies do not contribute to human rights and humanitarian law
violations of any kind, and especially not of the scale and scope of
those against the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
______
Prepared Statement of Bruce Fein, Attorney, Tamils Against Genocide
Dear Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I welcome the
opportunity to share my views on the recent violence in Sri Lanka; and,
to make recommendations as to how the United States should respond to
diminish or end the daily horrors inflicted on innocent civilians
outside any conceivable war zone.
I. The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has compounded the difficulty of
knowing what is happening by an impenetrable media blackout and
eviction of all outside observers.
Best estimates from neutral persons in Sri Lanka place the death
toll of innocent Tamil civilians in the predominantly Tamil northeast
over the past 2 months at more than 2,000. The number of injured
probably exceeds 10,000. The number of displaced persons most likely
approximates 350,000. None of these figures, however, can be confirmed
at present with direct testimony. The Sinhalese Buddhist GOSL is the
reason we are reduced to conjecture. It has imposed a media blackout.
It has evicted all NGOs. It has evicted all humanitarian aid workers.
It has evicted the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. It has evicted the
International Committee of the Red Cross. No independent news reporter
or neutral witness may observe the conflict between the all Sinhalese
``Tamil free'' armed forces and security services of Sri Lanka and the
Tamil Tigers. Neither are there outside eyewitnesses to the
indiscriminate violence that rains down daily on innocent Tamil
civilians whether in hospitals, temples, churches, schools, or ``safe
zones''--an Orwellian term to describe the forced concentration of
Tamil civilians into a tiny area to increase the efficiency of their
physical destruction in whole or in substantial part by the Sinhalese
majority.
The GOSL accuses the Tamil Tigers of responsibility for the
atrocities and worse against Tamil civilians. The LTTE and Tamil
civilians maintain the opposite. Who is telling the truth? There can be
no conclusive answer based on direct eyewitness testimony because the
GOSL has compounded the fog of war with the fog of censorship--making
the Tamil northeast a virtual black hole. If the GOSL's assertions were
true about LTTE culpability in the killings of Tamil civilians, it
would have all the incentive in the world to lift both the censorship
and the media blackout and place the northeast under a public
spotlight. It has hundreds of military camps in the north and
northeast. Its roadblocks are omnipresent. It controls population
movements more tightly through National Identity Cards and otherwise
than South Africa did during apartheid. It could easily create safe
passage for foreign reporters and NGOs to testify about responsibility
for the grim Tamil civilian casualties and conditions of life.
From the circumstance that the Sinhalese Buddhist GOSL has drawn a
figurative iron curtain around the northeast and the so-called ``safety
zone,'' a persuasive inference can be drawn that it is hiding something
terrible: its primary or complete responsibility for the recent ongoing
murders and sister atrocities against Tamil civilians.
II. A page of history is worth volumes of logic.
Accordingly, to understand Sri Lanka's contemporary ethnic
conflict, the history of Sinhalese Buddhist persecution of Tamil Hindu/
Christians must be briefly recounted.
Sri Lanka's Tamils in the Jaffna Peninsula and in the North-East
have been victims of Sinhalese Buddhist persecution and genocide since
independence 61 years ago. Sri Lanka uniquely sports a culture of
genocide. But for a few quislings and Tamils willing to accept
vassalage or serfdom, every living Tamil in the Jaffna Peninsula and
the North-East has been displaced, physically injured, or persecuted by
the Sinhalese Buddhist majority--an unprecedented victimization rate
approaching 100 percent.
A genocidal culture seeks to destroy a minority racial, ethnic, or
religious group not only by extrajudicial killings, but also by
disintegrating their political and social institutions, language,
national identity, religion, and economic existence; undermining their
personal security, liberty, health, education, communications, mobility
and dignity; and, creating a permanent state of psychological or
emotional trauma or anxiety through never-ending displacements or
otherwise.
Sri Lanka's culture of genocide was born in part from a paranoid
imagination that more than 50 million Tamils from Tamil Nadu state in
India would be perpetually plotting to overrun Sri Lanka's Sinhalese
Buddhists by sheer numbers. Building on that fear, three elements
combined. The first was the Mahavamsa, the Sinhalese Buddhist
equivalent of the Christian New Testament or the Muslim Holy Koran. The
Mahavamsa myths teach that Sinhalese Buddhists are the sole rightful
occupiers of Sri Lanka; and, that Tamils and all others are inferior
interlopers who must be destroyed to honor Buddha.
The second was the Buddhist monk dogma that religion and state were
indivisible; and, that Sinhalese Buddhism and politics on the island
should merge.
The third was the Sinhalese Buddhist racial supremacist doctrines
of the venerated Sinhalese Buddhist monk Dharmapala. They exalted a
pure Sinhalese Buddhist race in Sri Lanka to the exclusion of all
others. The race purity creed surfaced contemporaneously with Hitler's
goal of making Nazi Germany pure Aryan.
Reminiscent of white racist politicians in the South during Jim
Crow in the United States, Sri Lankan prime ministerial or Presidential
candidates routinely pledge to be more genocidal toward Tamils than
their campaign rivals to win Sinhalese Buddhist votes. Each political
contest culminates in higher plateaus of Tamil genocide than had been
set by its predecessor.
At independence, Sri Lanka's population was then generally divided
into two ethnic-religious groups. The commanding majority were
Sinhalese Buddhists with a smattering of Sinhalese Christians. They
constituted an approximately 77 percent voting majority, and resided
predominately in the west and south. Tamil Hindus with a small
percentage of Tamil Christians comprised approximately 18 percent of
the population. They resided primarily in the north and east. The
remainder consisted of Tamil-speaking Muslims who largely resided in
the east.
Like Jews in Nazi Germany, Tamils are excluded from service in the
Sri Lankan armed forces, security services, or law enforcement
agencies. In the Jaffna Peninsula and the North-East, Tamils are
exposed to conditions of life intended to lead to their physical
destruction in whole or in substantial part. Those conditions include,
but are not limited to, starvation; malnutrition; disease; chronic
displacements; lack of housing, medical care, education, and
communications; abject poverty, and permanent physical and economic
insecurity.
Since Sri Lanka's birth, only one nontrivial crime perpetrated by a
Sinhalese Buddhist against a Tamil has ever been prosecuted and
seriously punished; and, no Tamil has ever been compensated for
injuries inflicted by the GOSL for its orchestrated riots or crimes.
Long before the LTTE came into being, Tamils had been viciously
persecuted and slaughtered by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority
with impunity. Mahatma Gandhi-like peaceful protests by Tamils against
subjugation were answered with brutality.
In 1956, the Sinhalese-Buddhist majority enacted the ``Sinhala Only
Act.'' It made Sinhalese the exclusive official language of Sri Lanka
and stripped the Tamil language of equal dignity or respect. The
exaltation of Sinhalese severely compromised the ability of Tamils to
compete professionally, academically, and politically, and handicapped
their legal protection because all complaints or testimonies must be in
Sinhalese.
Two hundred Tamils peacefully assembled on Galle Face Green, which
faces the Sri Lankan Parliament, to protest the Sinhala Only Act on
June 5, 1956. Led by junior minister Rajaratna, Sinhalese mobsters
attacked the Tamils and pelted the protestors with stones while the
Sinhala police gazed on in amusement. Rioting against Tamils soon
spread nationwide, including the major cities of Colombo, Batticaloa,
Trincomalee, and Gal Oya. When the rioting ended, approximately 150
Tamils were dead. The GOSL neither attempted to prosecute the Sinhalese
attackers nor compensated the Tamil victims. No apology for the rioting
was offered.
After the conflict with the LTTE commenced, the Sinhalese Buddhist
GOSL routinely responded to military attacks by massacring the Tamil
civilian population, like Hitler's destruction of Lidice in World War
II. ``Black July'' of 1983 was emblematic.
In response to an LTTE attack in the Jaffna Peninsula on Sri
Lanka's Army that killed 13 soldiers, the GOSL orchestrated the mass
murder of Tamil civilians and destruction of their properties. They
were removed from buses and cars to be hacked and burned alive. In
Colombo alone, more than 2,000 were slaughtered and 70,000 displaced.
Elsewhere, more than 1,000 were slain and 150,000 were displaced and
driven into refugee camps. When the rioting concluded, 18,000 homes had
been damaged, 20,000 Tamil shops had been ravaged, and more than 100
Tamil industrial plants had been destroyed. In Jaffna alone, 175 homes
had been set ablaze by policemen. Thirty-nine Hindu and Tamil places of
worship were destroyed. No Sinhalese Buddhist culprit was prosecuted,
and, no Tamil victim was compensated. Then GOSL President Jaywardene
sneered to a British reporter in an interview republished in the
government-run Sunday Observer on July 17: ``I am not worried about the
opinion of the Jaffna [Tamil] people now . . . Now we can't think of
them. Not about their lives or their opinion about us.''
III. Violence perpetrated by the incumbent Sinhalese Buddhist
Government of Sri Lanka against Tamil civilians has crossed the line
into genocide, which justified a criminal investigation under United
States laws.
The crime of genocide under the United States Genocide
Accountability Act of 2007 (GAA) is defined as physically destroying or
attempting to destroy in whole or in substantial part a racial, ethnic,
religious or national group, as such, through extrajudicial killings,
serious bodily injury, or the creation of conditions of life intended
to cause the physical destruction of the targeted group.
In spearheading the enactment of the GAA, Senator Richard Durbin
(D-IL), had in mind the cases of U.S. dual citizen Gotabaya Rajapaksa,
Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary, and U.S. permanent resident Sarath
Fonseka, Sri Lanka's Army Commander. The Senator elaborated: ``What we
are saying to those around the world who are engaged in uncivilized and
barbaric conduct is do not even consider coming to the United States as
your retirement home . . . There is no place for you to hide.'' Then
Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Joseph Biden (D-DE), and Hillary Clinton
(D-NY) supported Senator Durbin and the GAA.
On February 5, 2009, I had delivered to U.S. Attorney General Eric
H. Holder a three-volume, 1,000-page model 12-count genocide indictment
against Rajapaksa and Fonseka charging violations of the GAA. (An
executive summary is attached as Exhibit 1). Derived from affidavits,
court documents, and contemporaneous media reporting, the indictment
chronicles a tale of Sinhalese Buddhists attempting to make Sri Lanka
``Tamil free.'' Rajapaksa and Fonseka assumed their current offices in
December 2005. They exercise command responsibility over Sri Lanka's
mono-ethnic Sinhalese security forces. On their watch, they have
attempted to physically destroy Tamils in whole or in substantial part
through more than 3,800 extrajudicial killings or disappearances; the
infliction of serious bodily injury on tens of thousands; and, the
creation of conditions of life intended to lead to the physical
destruction of Tamil civilians, including starvation, withholding
medicines and hospital care, humanitarian aid embargoes, bombing and
artillery shelling of schools, hospitals, churches, temples; and, the
displacements of more than 1.3 million civilians into camps, which were
then bombed and shelled. This degree of mayhem inflicted on the Tamil
civilian population because of ethnicity or religion ranks with the
atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo that occasioned genocide indictments
against Serbs by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
During the past 2 months, a virtual reenactment of the Bosnian
Srebrenica genocide of more than 7,000 Muslims has unfolded. Sri
Lanka's armed forces employed indiscriminate bombing and shelling to
herd 350,000 Tamil civilians into a government-prescribed ``safe
zone,'' a euphemism for Tamil killing fields. There, more than 2,000
have been slaughtered and a greater number have been injured by
continued bombing and shelling. As a preliminary to the horror, roads
and medical aid were blocked and humanitarian workers and all media
were expelled. During a BBC radio interview on February 2, 2009,
Rajapaksa declared that outside the ``safe zone'' nothing should
``exist.'' A hospital was repeatedly bombed killing scores of patients.
Rajapaksa further proclaimed that in Sri Lanka any person not involved
in fighting on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka was a terrorist,
and that any person who criticized the GOSL should anticipate a death
squad. General Fonseka is no less definitive that Sri Lanka is
Sinhalese Buddhist (not a multiethnic) nation. In a September 23, 2008,
interview with Stewart Bell of the Canadian National Post, Fonseka
conceded: ``I strongly believe that this country belongs to the
Sinhalese. . . . ''
Under Article 5 of the Genocide Convention of 1948, ratified by the
United States Senate in 1986, the United States is obligated to provide
``effective penalties'' for genocide. That imposes an obligation on
signatory parties to investigate and to prosecute credible charges.
The predictable GOSL defense of counterterrorism will not wash. Not
a single Tamil victim identified in the genocide indictment was
involved in the longstanding ethnic civil war between the Government of
Sri Lanka and the LTTE--including the victims who were attacked in
hospitals, schools, temples, churches, and displaced person camps.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary
of Defense William Cohen recently published a report placing genocide
on the national security agenda. The State Department lists Sri Lanka
as an investigatory target in its Office of War Crimes. The New York-
based Genocide Prevention Project last December labeled Sri Lanka as a
country of ``highest concern.'' President Barack Obama has made the
case for military intervention in Sudan or elsewhere to stop
atrocities. The justification for opening a genocide investigation of
citizen Rajapaksa and permanent resident Fonseka is thus compelling. In
addition, an investigation or indictment, despite little current
prospect of extradition from Sri Lanka for trial in the United States,
would probably deter the GOSL from some of its most gruesome killing
tactics.
IV. Recommendations for stopping the genocide or slaughter of Tamil
civilians by the Sinhalese Buddhist GOSL.
I would suggest the United States consider the following measures:
Seek an international arms embargo on Sri Lanka in the
United Nations Security Council under Chapter 7 of the United
Nations Charter;
List Sri Lanka (along with Sudan, Iran, Syria, and Cuba) as
a state sponsor of terrorism under United States laws, which
would trigger various sanctions;
Freeze the United States assets of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and
Sarath Fonseka;
Deny visas to the GOSL leadership, including President
Mahinda Rajapaksa;
Vote against economic aid to the GOSL at the World Bank and
IMF;
Deny Sri Lankan goods favorable tariff treatment;
List Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and Sarath
Fonseka as specially designated terrorists under Executive
Order 13224;
Support a ``One country, two systems'' political solution to
the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka;
Withdraw the United State Ambassador from Colombo until the
genocide and indiscriminate killing of Tamil civilians by the
Sinhalese Buddhist GOSL ceases.
conclusion
For decades, the primary horrors in Sri Lanka have been inflicted
on Tamil civilians by the GOSL. Like triage, their plight should be
addressed first though genocide prosecutions or otherwise.
EXHIBIT 1
Executive Summary
model indictment charging u.s. citizen and sri lankan defense secretary
and u.s. permanent resident and commander of armed forces
Bruce Fein, attorney for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), has
gathered evidence that the crime of genocide under United States law
has been committed against the indigenous civilian Tamil population of
Sri Lanka outside of any conceivable war or conflict zone, for example,
temples, churches, schools, or hospitals. The evidence is collected in
a three-volume, 1,000 page prod model indictment which charges U.S.
citizen and Sri Lankan Defense Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and U.S.
permanent resident and Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, Lt. General
Saratha Fonseka, with 12 counts of genocide, and 106 counts of war
crimes and torture, in violation of U.S. domestic statutes 18 U.S.C.
Sec. 1091, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2441, and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340A.
TAG submitted the model indictment to the U.S. Department of
Justice on February 5, 2009, for the U.S. Attorney General to initiate
a grand jury investigation aimed at filing a federal criminal case in
the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
A recent U.S. statute now makes it a crime for U.S. citizens and
permanent residents to be responsible for the crime of genocide
committed even outside U.S. borders. If filed, this case would be the
first test of the United States Genocide Accountability Act of 2007
sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), and supported by then
Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Hillary Clinton
(D-NY)
The Sinhala-dominated government has discriminated against and
persecuted the civilian Tamils of Sri Lanka since independence in 1948.
Since the ethnic conflict erupted between the Sri Lankan armed forces
and Tamil rebels in 1983, the Tamil areas of the North-East have been
subjected to harrowing destruction. The Tamil people there have been
indiscriminately killed, disappeared, kidnapped, raped, and otherwise
persecuted with the intent to destroy Tamil groups in whole or in
substantial part because they are not Sinhalese Buddhists.
command responsibility for genocide, war crimes and torture
The model indictment organizes all relevant crimes committed
against Tamils in Sri Lanka between December 5, 2005 and January 29,
2009. By compiling legal evidence, this document intends to prove that
the defendants are individually criminally responsible for genocide,
war crimes, and torture as recognized and punishable under U.S.
domestic law. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction or
attempted destruction, in whole or in substantial part, of an ethnic,
racial, religious, or national group, as such. War crimes are the
violation of the laws and customs of war and include the murder, ill-
treatment or deportation of civilians, the wanton destruction of
cities, towns, and villages, and any devastation not justified by
military necessity.
As detailed in the model indictment, the specific crimes of
genocide, war crimes, and torture committed against Tamils during the
period from December 5, 2005 to January 29, 2009 (Eelam War IV), from
the gang-rape of Tharshini Illayathamby to the Sencholai school
bombing, were committed under the military command responsibility of
the defendants through the following nonexhaustive list of methods
which were systematically employed in Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan armed
forces and government-sponsored paramilitaries: Murder, massacre,
torture, mutilation and maiming, disappearance, abduction, rape, gang-
rape, sexual abuse and assault, arbitrary or indefinite detention,
indiscriminate aerial bombardment, indiscriminate artillery shelling, a
permanent cycle of displacement and redisplacement, starvation,
deprivation of essential goods, medicine, education and public
services, harassment, intimidation, and other stark conditions of life
intended to cause the physical destruction of Tamil groups in whole or
in substantial part.
These crimes have brought the Sri Lankan Tamil community to
substantial physical destruction, as the model indictment details:
``Every living Tamil in the Jaffna Peninsula and the North-
East has been displaced, physically injured, and/or persecuted
by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority--an unprecedented
victimization rate approaching 100 percent.''
``During more than two decades of war, including Eelam War
IV, in predominantly Northeastern provincial territories, all
Hindu/Christian North-East Sri Lankan Tamil villages have been
fully depopulated at least once.'' ``The economic blockade and
military attacks worked in tandem with a media blackout, and
confinement of Tamil civilians in the North-East intensified.
The GOSL continued their genocidal strategy of killing Tamils
in concentrated locations and imposing stringent conditions of
life with shortages of food, medicine, energy, or housing to
destroy Tamils physically through starvation, malnutrition,
disease, and exposure to the elements.''
In one 4-year period alone ``Sri Lankan forces destroyed
150,000 homes, created 6,000 widows, orphaned 4,000 children in
the North-East, damaged 700 temples through bombings, and
removed various icons or holy Hindu images from 63 temples.''
``Poverty, displacement, and garrisoning of entire towns and
villages by Sri Lanka's armed forces caused Jaffna's student
population to plunge by 100,000 since 1995, the Government
Agent for the northern district reported. Before Eelam III, the
student population in Jaffna was 240,000. By 2004, it had
dropped to 140,000.''
``Genocide [was also accomplished] in Jaffna and the North-
East, respectively, in part through colonization,
militarization, and Sinhalization.'' A population which had
some of the best indicators of civilian well-being in South
Asia, including literacy and infant mortality rates has now
become one of the poorest areas. For instance, ``In 1991, of
the total 148,080 tons of essential foods needed in Jaffna,
only 43,080 tons were supplied--a 71-percent shortfall. Paddy
production plunged 83 percent.'' ``Before Eelam War II and the
blockade, 700-1,000 tons of food was unloaded annually at Point
Pedro Port in Jaffna; during Eelam War II, that quantify fell
to 100 tons.'' ``The fishing sector provided subsistence and
livelihoods for 200,000 Tamils. Annual fish production in this
sector fell from 104,300 tons to 1,094 tons, a drop of 98.95
percent, occasioned by national security restrictions. Local
consumption before the blockade annually required 6,605 tons of
fish. Only 16.6 percent of that tonnage was caught after
1990.'' In 2002, ``[t]he SLA destroyed 50,000 palmyra trees on
the route joining Thalaimannar to Mannar. Approximately 40,000
Tamil families depend on palmyra plantations while another
25,000 families' livelihood depends on toddy production,
handicrafts, as well as other tree products.'' ``In the 10
months from June 1990 to April 1991, North-Eastern hospitals
required 220 million rupees to operate, but the GOSL only
supplied 7 percent--15 million--of the required amount, and did
so irregularly.'' During the same period, ``Amparai, whose
Sinhala population had risen since independence due to state-
sponsored colonization, received funding and treatment for 90
percent of their needs.'' ``In the Jaffna Peninsula, for
example, the SLA's Operation Whirlwind in May 1992 bombed eight
hospitals and surrounding infrastructure.''
``The Mannar Bishop and human rights activists lamented [in
1998] that the CSU [Counter Subversive Unit] habitually arrests
women such as Sivamani and Wijikala from various parts of the
Mannar district to rape and exploit brutally under the pretext
of interrogation and extended detention pursuant to the
Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Regulations.''
Colonization of Sinhalese into Tamil areas has continued
apace. For instance, ``The GOSL began construction of a
Buddhist shrine in Vilankulam, a traditional Tamil village in
2002 . . . In a companion act of religious bigotry, [nearby, 2
weeks later] the GOSL banned renovation of the historic Hindu
temple at Kanniya, in Trincomalee.'' In 2007, ``[w]hile a
majority of the 222 Tamil families from the traditionally all
Tamil Raalkuli village in Muthur division in Trincomalee
District had been displaced due to SLA and SLAF attacks, by
this date, a Colombo-based Buddhist organization laid the
foundation stone for 138 houses intended for the settlement of
Sinhala-Buddhist civilians in the village.''
``The fact is that not a single member of the security
forces had, at the date of the Mission, been convicted of
murder . . . A culture of impunity has developed, with
perpetrators of grave violations being convicted of minor
offenses or, in most cases, not at all.''--Centre for the
Independence of Judges and Lawyers in Geneva, 1997. ``Torture
has been facilitated by widespread impunity of the
perpetrators. To date, no member of the security forces has
been brought to justice for committing torture."--Amnesty
International, 1998
The Eelam War IV genocidal motivation can be understood only when
juxtaposed with the post-independence pattern of facts and historical
events which show the persistent intent of successive democratically
elected Sinhala-Buddhist regimes to commit deliberate acts of genocide
with the intent to destroy in whole or in substantial part the Hindu/
Christian North-East Sri Lankan Tamil national, ethnic, racial,
religious group, as such, in the North-East provincial territories of
Sri Lanka, which includes the heavily populated Jaffna Peninsula.
genocide and war crimes
Proof of genocidal motivation is occasionally direct, as with
Defendant Fonseka's assertion that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese nation--not
a multiethnic nation. Other evidence of motivation is circumstantial,
for example, no Tamils serve in the security forces; and no Sinhalese
Buddhist perpetrator of extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, and
other atrocities has ever been both prosecuted and punished in more
than 60 years, with one minor exception.
Twelve counts of genocide are charged in the model indictment,
followed by 106 counts of war crimes and torture. These introduce the
option of legal action which charges the defendants for acts of war
crimes and acts of torture where, unlike the counts of genocide, the
proof of intent to physically destroy on whole or in substantial part a
Tamil group is not required.
The indictment charges violations of U.S. criminal laws, not
international law. The institutions entrusted with enforcing
international criminal prohibitions, for instance, the International
Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice, are routinely
hijacked by big-power politics. China would frustrate any effort to
call the Defendants to account before international bodies, just as it
has for its own crimes against Tibetans or Uighurs.
Recourse is being made to prosecuting these crimes in U.S. courts
because the Government of Sri Lanka, controlled by the island's
Sinhala-Buddhist majority, has been an impediment to delivering any
justice for crimes against Tamils in Sri Lanka. Further, the defendants
are a U.S. citizen and U.S. permanent resident, whom the United States
has a special responsibility for prosecuting under the Genocide
Convention of 1948, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1986.
United States courts are fiercely independent, and will not be
distracted in a genocide prosecution about arguments over the listing
of the LTTE as a terrorist organization or other irrelevancies to the
crime that the defendants would attempt to interject.
The Counts
Genocide Counts
The charges of genocide in the model indictment are separated into
12 counts as discernable by the differing methods of genocide in
different territorial areas of North-East Sri Lanka. The 12 counts of
genocide are comprised of 5 region-level counts and 6 village-cluster
levels of genocide. The 5 regions are listed below:
Region-Level Genocide
1. Non-Government-Controlled Northern Territory (NGNT): Vanni
Region, which includes Mullaithivu and Kilinochchi districts (as of
January 2008).
2. Government-Controlled Northern Territory 1 (GNT-1): Jaffna
Peninsula that includes the Jaffna district and the Jaffna islets.
3. Government-Controlled Northern Territory 2 (GNT-2): Vavuniya
District, Mullaithivu District and Mannar District.
4. Eastern Territory (ET): Trincomalee District, Batticaloa
District, Amparai District.
5. Southern Territory (ST): Western Province, Central Province,
Sabaragumuwa Province, and the Southern Province.
Village Cluster-Level Genocide
The 6 village clusters of the village-cluster level genocide counts
6-11, whose villages where acts of genocide occurred are listed in the
charging section of the model indictment are
a. Sampoor village cluster;
b. Mannar/Manthai village cluster;
c. Vavuniya North village cluster;
d. Mullaithivu South village cluster;
e. Poonakari village cluster;
f. Pallai-Vadamaradchi East village cluster.
war crimes and torture
The war crimes under the War Crimes Act of 1996 and the U.S.
criminal prohibition of torture in fulfillment of the Convention
Against Torture listed in this model indictment are not comprehensive.
They will be supplemented with new evidence that TAG expects to be
generated by the model indictment example. In U.S law, the new charges
would be contained in what is called a ``superseding indictment.''
In this model indictment, there are 106 counts of war crimes and
torture. Each act of torture, murder, rape, mutilation or maiming,
sexual abuse or abuse, is charged separately by individual.
The 106 counts include, in no particular order, all Tamil civilian
victims of the following:
Separate acts of torture in the areas of Jaffna, Batticaloa,
and Colombo carried out through a nonexhaustive list of torture
methods used by the Sri Lankan armed forces and government-
sponsored paramilitaries;
Murder of Tamil civilian male Joseph Pararajasingam;
Trinco-5 massacre;
Allaipitti massacre;
ACF-17 massacre;
Sencholai bombing;
Rape of Tharshini Illayathamby;
Murder, decapitation, and body mutilation by dismemberment
of Tamil civilian male Fr. Jim Brown;
Murder and decapitation of a 5-month-old Tamil male infant
by an indiscriminate aerial bombardment of a Tamil civilian
area; and,
Sexual assault of 51 Tamils in Boosa Detention Camp.
explaining tamil genocide
All previous well-known genocides which have occurred since the end
of World War II have been characterized by a massive number of murders
in a small defined locality occurring in a short time period and
carried out by an actor seeking the total physical extermination of a
particular ethnic group. The post-1945 genocide cases often cited are:
the Holocaust, the Kurds in Iraq, the Srebrenica massacre, and Rwanda.
By contrast, Sri Lanka's genocide against Tamils has taken place
over a number of years and is more characterized by widespread,
prolonged displacement and destruction of the community's physical and
cultural base than murder. For this and also wider geopolitical
reasons, the destruction of the Sri Lankan Tamils is less well
understood in the world at large as a case of genocide.
The 2007 U.S. Genocide Accountability Act defines genocide as an
attempt to physically destroy a group in whole or in substantial part
because of race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality, as such, by
employing the following tactics: Extrajudicial killings or
disappearances; the infliction of serious bodily harm; or, the creation
of conditions of life intended to cause the physical destruction of a
racial, religious, ethnical, or national group in whole or in
substantial part. The evidence collected and organized in the model
indictment establishes a prima facie case that Eelam War IV is genocide
masquerading as counterinsurgency. Every incident of genocide
chronicled in the indictment was inflicted on Tamil civilians outside
any conceivable war zone and uninvolved in the ethnic conflict between
the LTTE and the government.
The central difference between the Tamil genocide and other post-
1945 genocides is that in Sri Lanka the culture of genocide seeks to
physically destroy Tamils in substantial part, not in whole, if the
Tamil survivors are willing to accept vassalage or serfdom to Sinhalese
Buddhists.
Eelam War IV, and the Tamil genocide between December 6, 2005 and
January 29, 2009, as detailed and alleged in the model indictment,
inherits and continues a post-1948 Sinhala-Buddhist culture of genocide
against Sri Lankan Tamils which fundamentally seeks to create a
racially pure Sinhala-Buddhist state as prophesied in the 13th century
pseudo-historical text of Sri Lankan Sinhala-Buddhism, the
``Mahavamsa.'' It is widely taught, read, and revered today among
Sinhalese Buddhists as incontrovertible truth.
From the first to the last page of the model indictment, the
evidence is mountainous that the ascendant Sinhalese Buddhist power
structure has invariably acted on the conviction that Sri Lanka is a
mono-ethnic-religious nation and that all other groups are aliens or
interlopers whose physical existence (when it is tolerated) is at the
grace of the government.