On March 26, the UN
Human Rights Council has approved an international war crimes inquiry into
alleged crimes committed during Sri Lanka's civil war. It has adopted a resolution
that allows the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) to
monitor progress and undertake a comprehensive investigation into atrocities
committed between September 2008 and May 2009, before the end of the war, by
the government army and the LTTE. Among the 41 countries participated in the
Council, 23 voted in favour of the resolution, 12 against and 12 abstained from
voting.
The Sri Lankan
government has strongly rejected the allegations against it declaring “The
resolution will not only constitute a serious breach of international law but
also sets a precedence on the sovereignty of nations”.
Navi
Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is very critical about
the attitude of Sri Lankan Government since long time, has said that Sri Lanka
has made "little progress" towards ensuring accountability for
alleged atrocities and war crimes committed during the 26-year civil war
against the Tamil fighters.
War crimes are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, of which Sri Lanka is a
signatory. In 2002 the International Criminal Court (ICC)
was created by the Rome Statute to prosecute individuals for
serious crimes, such as war crimes. Sri Lanka is not a signatory of the Rome
Statute. Therefore it is only possible for the ICC to investigate and prosecute
war crimes in Sri Lanka if the UN Security Council was to refer Sri Lanka to the
ICC, which is unlikely.
Background of the resolution
Tamil
people are an ethnic group native to the state of Tamil Nadu of India and to
the northeast zone of Sri Lanka. This community mainly consisting of Hindus,
with small section of Christians and Muslims, is the victim of civil war, which
wreaks havoc across Sri Lanka since 1983. After the Independence in 1947, the
conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils only increase as the former consider
the latter as Indian nationals. In 1949, the government withdrew the
citizenship of a large part of the Tamil population to reduce their
representation in the electorate from 33% to 20%. Then in 1956, the government
changed the official language English by Sinhalese, which actually helped
establishing the dominance of the Sinhalese Buddhist community in local
government. The Sinhalese majority had imposed its language, culture and
religion while monopolizing political power.
It was the year of 1971, when the
Sri Lankan Government implemented the policy of standardization to rectify
disparities created in university with the enrollment number of Tamil and
Sinhalese students and later the government added district quota as a parameter
within each languages, but the Sinhalese were in majority in number. Before
that, the Tamil population enjoyed a kind of social dominance in the education
structure because of their strong English background. But the advantage of
quota system for the Sinhalese students pushed the number of Tamil students
towards gradual declination in the universities. For example, in 1969, the
Northern Province, which was largely populated by Tamils and comprised 7% of
the population of the country, provided 27.5 percent of the entrants to science-based
courses in Sri Lankan universities. By 1974, this was reduced to 7%. This is
why an organization called Tamil Students League was born to oppose the law of
standardization implemented by the government.
Later at the national level, in
1976 a pro-Independence organization named Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) was created in Sri Lanka. After several attempts to restore the Tamil
rights by forcing the Sinhalese Government, they took up arms in 1983, at the
beginning of the militarization of the conflict. Officially, it is between 1983
and 2009, the civil war took place in Sri Lanka between the Sri Lankan
Government dominated by the Sinhalese and the LTTE. The latter’s principle
objective was to defend the rights of Tamil people in Sri Lanka. In fact, the
Singhalese people have imposed their language, their culture and their religion
on the Tamils by monopolizing the political power. This movement wants to
establish historical Tamil Eelam, comprising the Northern and Eastern
Provinces.
In 2009,
the Sri Lankan military cornered LTTE in its area, after regaining all the
cities controlled by it. The latter finally took refuge in the region of
Mullaittivu with a civilian population between 150 000 to 300 000. During the final
days of the war, the army put embargo on the media entering the combat zone.
The 16th May, LTTE lost its access to the sea, which was vital for their
supply. On 17th may 2009, LTTE finally surrendered and ended this 26 years long
civil war by dropping their guns. On 18th may, Velupillai Pravakaran was killed
in the hands of Sri Lankan forces.
According to the local authorities, around
15,000 and 20,000 civilians were surrounded in that combat zone. This figure
even goes up to 40,000 according to the UN. No one knows the exact number of
dead and injured during the last phase of the combat. This secessionist war
took over 100,000 lives and more than 800,000 people have become refugees.
The
reportage was done on last 18 may, the Sri Lankan Tamil community of France
demonstrated at Paris’s Trocadéro against the persecution and torture it
suffered in Sri Lanka, and to demand for an international enquiry into the
atrocities committed by Sri Lankan Army.
After the
announcement of the UN Human Rights Council’s decision, the Tamils are now
expecting that the justice will be done and the perpetrators of human right
violation will be punished.
In Sri
Lanka, led by President
Mahinda Rajapaksa,
there is undeclared censorship on the freedom of speech and the liberty of
press. Quite an important number of journalists and civil right activists are
victims of repressive state apparatus. A few died, some are in prison and a
handful took refuge in foreign countries.
In the
South-Asian perspective, this ethnic conflict has greater political
significance. It marks a number of points in Indian context. In Tamilnadu where
the sentiment related to the persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka continues
playing an important role in the State politics. The issue has also created
uproar in national politics. India got embroiled in Sri Lankan conflict by
sending Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the island to disarm the different
Tamil militant groups under the mandate of Indi-Sri Lankan Accord in 1987, with
the objective of ending the Civil War. But the action escalated into armed
conflict between IPKF and LTTE. Finally IPKF was withdrawn in 1990. But there
were a number of accusations of human right violation against the peacekeeping
force. LTTE had took its revenge by killing one of the two signatories of the
accord, then prime minister of India Rajib Gandhi in a terrorist attack in 1991.
The
assassination had dented severely into the support base of LTTE in Tamilnadu,
which shelters a large number of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees.
After the
IPKF debacle, the bilateral relation between India and Sri Lanka decorated
gradually. But with the time, the subject turned again into an ethnic
solidarity among the Tamil regional parties during the last phase of the war in
2009, and which remains alive in the political climate of the State, resulted
in a number of violent incidents.
There are
speculations that the Chinese government has helped Sri Lankan State with arms
and other useful services. Those become convincing when one sees the Chinese as
the biggest foreign investor in that country.
Thus, India must take
notice of the changes in Sri Lanka for its own regional interest.
The provincial
council election in the north of Sri Lanka was held in September 2013 and the Tamil
National Alliance (TNA), which is the political proxy of the LTTE, won 30 out
of 38 seats.
The election result has threatened to reignite the tension between the
government and the Tamils. Many in the north appear unwilling to give up
longstanding claims to greater autonomy despite economic development and
significant investment in infrastructure in the north since the end of the war.
