The Ugly Side of War
Human rights violations, particularly the senseless killings and
disappearances of innocent civilians are violent consequences of war.
Since the Sri Lankan government has intensified its military offensives to
wipe out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and to end the bloody
26-year struggle for an independent Tamil homeland, the repercussions of
the war weigh heavily on civilians, mostly the Tamil population caught in
between the warring sides. Both parties are showing little respect if not
total disregard for human rights and non-compliance to humanitarian laws.
In the recent round of fighting, it was shocking to learn that the Sri
Lankan government is carefree in indiscriminately shelling heavy artillery
into the LTTE-controlled areas in the northeast while the Tamil Tigers are
using the civilian population as human shields and a source of forced
recruitment for combatants.
What makes it even worse is that limited information is
known in what is happening in the ground due to the government’s
prohibition of the media and local and international human rights groups
to monitor the situation and provide humanitarian assistance to the
civilians trapped in the combat zone. However, the United Nations has
reported that civilian casualties from January to March this year have
reached nearly 10,000, with some 3,000 deaths and over 7,000 injuries - a
conservative estimate of the actual figures.
But with the way this war is being waged by these two
contending parties, whatever the outcome will be, the political crisis
will certainly be far from over and human rights situation is expected to
worsen in the days to come.
The Phantom Menace
War is a phantom menace. It never offers a viable means to settle a
conflict, but instead, it germinates more violence. This is one lesson of
history which Sri Lanka has to learn. Apparently, it is doomed to repeat
its mistake.
After
achieving its independence in 1948 from the British, the Sinhalese
government introduced discriminatory policies against the Tamils which
comprised 24% of the Sri Lankan population. The Tamils were not only
humiliated but also reduced into second class citizens with the
enforcement of unfair education laws, anti-Tamil employment regulations,
and the making of the language of the Sinhalese majority, the Sinhala, as
the country’s official language.
These forms of discrimination had ignited a fire for Tamil resistance, but
their peaceful protests were met with state brutality and repression. More
than three thousand Tamils were recorded killed in the so-called “Black
July,” the anti-Tamil pogrom carried out by Sinhala mobs on
23
July 1983 that resulted in a Tamil diaspora. This started the full-scale
armed conflict between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese-dominated
government of Sri Lanka which claimed at least 70,000 deaths. In the year
2000, the Sri Lankan government was forced to enter into unilateral
ceasefires with the LTTE due to the latter’s growing military strength and
the heavy slump of the economy caused by the war. In February 2002, a
Norwegian-mediated ceasefire agreement was reached by the warring parties
which provided the LTTE an interim self-governing authority for Tamils in
the northeast. But the Sri Lankan government failed to implement the
provisions of the ceasefire agreement and as a result, the LTTE pulled out
its participation in the peace negotiations in 2003. The Sri Lankan
government responded by renewing its military operations in January last
year, aimed at totally annihilating the LTTE and winning back its
territory.
The Recurring Nightmares
The primary responsibility of any state is to maintain law and order in
the country. The civil war is not only a proof that the Sri Lankan
government is losing control of the situation but also of its incapability
of stopping if not intentionally allowing the widespread and systematic
occurrences of arbitrary arrest, torture, extra-judicial killings and
disappearances of innocent civilians. Sri Lanka has the second highest
number of disappearances reported to the United Nations Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID). The Human Rights Watch
2008 World Report says that more than 1,500 people were reported missing
from 2005 to 2007, with more than 1,000 cases of enforced disappearances
in 2006 alone.
These recurring nightmares have already left thousands
of families desperately searching for their loved ones who have
disappeared without a trace and have been taken by force at public places,
security checkpoints, from their homes or even in the “welfare camps. “
Members of the state security forces, police and paramilitary groups are
alleged to be behind these incidents. But despite growing complaints, the
government has demonstrated an utter lack of interest to inquire and
investigate. It even downplays the issue as mere black propaganda of Tamil
Tigers. Though in some cases where the disappeared persons were later
found in detention centers or in police custody, the government simply
made the lame excuse of accusing them of being Tamil sympathizers.
Making people disappeared has become a convenient
practice of the state to silence those who oppose them or who pose a
threat to the powers-that-be. A Sri Lankan government official was
even quoted for saying that collateral damage is quite natural in times of
war. This irresponsible statement conveys a dreadful message.
Consequently, enforced disappearance is, once again, the order of the day
and being carried out with total impunity.
But sad to say, the crime of enforced disappearance in
Sri Lanka, just like in most Asian countries, is still not considered a
distinct offense in the Penal Code. The government has, like many other
Asian countries, not taken a decisive step to sign and ratify the UN
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
even if it was one of the states that supported the resolution of the then
UN Commission on Human Rights for the establishment of the then UN Inter-Sessional
Working Group to Elaborate a Draft Legally-Binding Normative Instrument
for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
The
judiciary, on the other hand, is made inutile by the Emergency Decrees
that provide legitimacy to most of these incidents by allowing the
immediate disposal of the bodies without inquiry. The National Human
Rights Commission is in no better position to improve the situation due to
the inherent flaws in its mandate. Moreover, it usually yields to
political loyalty ascribed to the nature of its appointment. The
recommendations of the previous Presidential Commissions of Inquiry into
Disappearances of Persons were apparently thrown in the dustbin as no
perpetrator is punished. Even the call for an international monitoring
mission to look into the human rights situation has been strongly resisted
by the Sri Lankan government, a fact that confirms its absence of
political will to stop this scourge of human rights violations. As a
concrete proof of these gross human rights violations by the Sri Lankan
government, the latter was not renewed as a member the UN Human Rights
Council during the Universal Periodic Review in 2008.
The Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda
Rajapakse, who was once a human rights advocate when he was still a member
of Parliament and in fact, part of those who first organized the
Organization of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (OPFMD) in
the early ‘90s, is ironically considered now as one of the world’s worst
perpetrators of enforced disappearances.
A Common Humanity
In the Philippines, the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID),
together with the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC), organized a
press conference on 15 April 2009 in Quezon City to inform the public of
the real situation in Sri Lanka and draw out an international response to
address the situation. Mr. Ruki Fernando, a Sri Lankan human rights
activist who is in self-exile because his name was included in the list of
persons that the Sri Lankan authorities had blacklisted, presented before
the media and civil society organizations a powerpoint about the on- oing
civil war and its effects to the Sri Lankan population particularly the
increasing human rights violations against the Tamils. He was touring the
Asian region to appeal for an international support to end this violence.
Joining
Mr. Fernando in the panel was Fr. Robert Reyes, a Filipino Catholic priest
known for his activism and advocacy for human rights which earned for him
the moniker, “The Running Priest” for jogging around the metropolis as a
way to call the government’s as well as the public’s attention on the
human rights and corruption issues plaguing the country. In the press
conference, Fr. Reyes expressed his solidarity on the international
campaign to call for an end of war in Sri Lanka. He believed that what is
happening in Sri Lanka is no different from what is happening in the
Philippines. He even joked that the two countries shared an ill-fate for
having a government which is legally and morally mandated to promote and
protect human rights but instead, have become the Number 1 violator. He
was also saddened by the news that even the churches, both the Catholic
Christians and the Buddhists are becoming an instrument of war by giving
their prayers and blessings to combatants who are on their way to kill
each other. He opined that evil is no business of the righteous and that a
good deed is the only way to destroy wicked acts. For him, human rights
and human dignity are what define our common humanity. It is therefore our
oral obligation to help our brothers and sisters in need and to stand
against any forms of wrongdoing.
The Role of the AFAD
The day prior to the press conference, the support of the Asian
Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) was sought when Mr.
Ruki Fernando visited its office. Requested possible forms of support are
projection of the issue; renewing ties with organizations in Sri Lanka;
mobilizing its Latin American partners to support the issue of Sri Lanka
and whatever possible efforts the Federation may conduct in view of the
fact that its mandate is to work on the issue of enforced disappearances.
The Federation, with all its capacity and considering
its limitations, has to boldly respond to the appeal to the best that it
could. After all, an organization in Sri Lanka was one of the founding
members of the Federation. It is a country frequently visited by the
Federation in the past years and whose family members of the disappeared
literally begged for support. They brought with them photos of their
disappeared loved ones and hoped that one day, all their tears will be
wiped away.
Looking back, Sri Lankan families appealed for
solidarity. The same families continue to search for truth and justice and
in fact, there are more of these families in the present context of the
country, whose deafening cry for solidarity, the Federation has to
concretely respond.
The Federation has the moral responsibility to accept
the challenge.
