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10 February 2009

H.E. Ban Ki-moon
United Nations Secretary-General

H.E. Navanethem Pillay
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Your Excellencies,

Open letter expressing concern over the current situation of the conflict in Sri Lanka and urging the United Nations and the international community to take action decisively

Suppression on journalists, human rights defenders and peace activists

We wish to express our deepest concern regarding the human tragedy unfolding in Sri Lanka. Due to restrictions imposed on travel to media personnel to cover the conflict situation we have not been able to ascertain the correct picture of the ground reality. Many Sri Lankan journalists who continued to discuss war related information and dared to expose the operations of the State and the Defence establishment has left the country or have been killed by armed gangs. To date the government of Sri Lanka has failed to find the perpetrators. Media establishments that failed to work to the orders of the establishment have been attacked causing damages. Human rights defenders who have resolutely stood up against disappearances, extra-judicial killings and violence have been tarnished. Peace activists have been abused as “traitors” and their names have appeared in official websites, thereby exposing them to dangers of “fascist-style” killings for which Sri Lanka has a past history not forgotten by us. We wish to remind the international community of the ugly past in the late 1980s where thousands were killed by the so called “fascist Sinhala patriotic forces.” The same situation still prevails, where civil society activists are tarnished and denigrated over the past two years.

On 1 February 2009, Defence Minister Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa went a step further: he warned that Ambassadors of Germany and Switzerland, international non-governmental organizations and the news channels CNN, Al-Jazeera and the BBC, will be chased away.

Responsibility to Protect

Around 250,000 civilians are presently locked in the conflict zone. Food supplies do not reach them and they lack basic medical facilities. We have seen several reports issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the present conditions prevailing in Mullaittivu. It is also alarming to receive news of cluster bombing of a hospital located in this area killing several hundreds of innocent civilians and patients. All laws of war and humanitarian laws have been violated deliberately, or conditions have been created by both parties to the conflicts whereby they could ignore these norms related to a conflict of this nature.

We are alarmed at the pronouncement of the Secretary of Defence where he considered those not leaving the LTTE held areas as “LTTErs.” This has exposed innocent civilians trapped into indiscriminate shelling by the government of Sri Lanka.

The declaration of the Sri Lankan government of its inability to protect the civilians follows President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s announcement on 29 January 2009 of a 48-hour ceasefire to allow safe passage to the civilians to cross over to the “safe zones.” As Your Excellency, High Commissioner Pillay stated on 29 January 2009, apart from people being prevented from fleeing they have also “been arbitrarily detained in special centers.” Further, the so-called “safe zones” are neither known to those trapped nor mutually agreed by the warring parties. Families have informed of losing family members on the way to the so-called safe-zones.

The refusal to provide guarantees for safety and security of the civilians constitutes an admission of the failure of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) as agreed by the Heads of State and Government in the 2005 World Summit Outcome, operationalizing the Responsibility to Protect which was subsequently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and endorsed by the Security Council.

Paragraph 138 of the Outcome Document relating to Responsibility to Protect states: “Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it.”

Failures of the Tokyo Co-Chairs

The statement of the Tokyo Co-Chairs (Norway, Japan, USA and EU) issued on 3 February 2009 appears naïve. The statement failed to reflect the ground situations and remained silent on the need for ensuring respect for the laws of war. The international community remains rhetorical without addressing the core-issues related to the conflict.

Unfortunately the Co-Chairs have continued to focus on infrastructure development in Sri Lanka with scant regard to human rights protection nor urging the government of Sri Lanka to take all steps to reduce war-mongering posture.

Second, the Tokyo Co-Chairs regrettably made no reference to the scale of killings of the civilians in the war. While the Sri Lankan government claimed of a policy of following a “zero civilian casualty,” the ICRC stated on 27 January 2009 that “[h]undreds of people have been killed and scores of wounded are overwhelming understaffed and ill-equipped medical facilities in Sri Lanka’s northern Vanni region.” It is precisely because of the absolute ban on reporting on war that gross violations of international laws of war and humanitarian law, both by the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE, are not being reported.

Third, the statement of the Tokyo Co-Chairs failed to urge both the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to fully respect the laws of wars including the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

While there is no disagreement with the statement of the Tokyo Co-Chairs that “[t]here remains probably only a short period of time before the LTTE loses control of all areas in the North,” it failed to take note of the costs – endangering the lives of over 250,000 civilians trapped in Mullaittivu. At present the LTTE refuses to “allow the civilians’ freedom of movement” while Sri Lanka is hell-bent on attacking the civilians in the LTTE held areas as shown by bombing of the hospitals, including the civil hospital in Pudukudiyyiruppu on 4 February 2009.

Recommendations

The international community, in particular the Tokyo Co-Chair, India and United Nations, must act decisively by taking the following measures:

Mediate between government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to declare indefinite ceasefire, and facilitate safe-passage of civilians to safe-zones operated by ICRC;

Immediately send Sri Lanka a UN Secretary-General’s special envoy, in order to facilitate dialogue for movement of civilians to safer-zones;

Urge Sri Lanka to lift ban on reporting on the war and prosecute those responsible for the murder and attacks on the journalists;

Find out modalities for “an inclusive dialogue to agree on a political settlement” of the conflict and provide unrestricted access to the UN agencies, the ICRC, and humanitarian organizations to the internally displaced persons;

Invite India to join as a member of the Tokyo Co-Chairs while India on its part must abandon its unilateral approach on Sri Lanka and accept the co-chairmanship; and

Take measures for holding a Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, send a High Level Investigation Team to inquire into the violations of international laws of war and humanitarian law both by the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE, including fixing of the command responsibility and establishing field missions of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor human rights violations.

Respectfully yours,

Nimalka Fernando, President
Kinhide Mushakoji, Vice-President /IMADR Japan Committee President
Yuriko Hara, Secretary-General