Countless thousands of Sri Lankans await justice and accountability for serious human rights violations and war crimes committed during decades of civil unrest and war.
So what is the government doing about it?
On the one hand, it has proposed a truth and reconciliation commission.
On the other hand, it did so without consulting past victims and their families. Additionally, authorities are harassing and arresting people demanding to know what happened to loved ones who “disappeared” during the war.
What We’ve Found
A new Human Rights Watch report documents how, when minority Tamil family members of those disappeared during Sri Lanka’s civil war become activists and campaigners – demanding justice for their loved ones – they are surveilled and intimidated by security forces. The authorities are using draconian counterterrorism laws to silence dissenting voices, including those calling for truth and accountability, while government-backed land grabs target Tamil and Muslim communities and their places of worship.
The report is based on more than 80 interviews with relatives of victims of enforced disappearance and other victims of abuse.
Sri Lanka’s civil war, between the government and successionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, raged for 26 years before ending in 2009. Thousands of people disappeared in state custody during the war as well as during a left-wing insurgency in the late 1980s. Government forces and rebel groups committed widespread atrocities during the war, including attacks on civilians, extrajudicial executions, torture, and the use of child soldiers.
The Commission
The new proposed commission is the latest in a line of commissions set up by successive Sri Lankan governments that collected extensive witness testimonies and led nowhere.
Efforts to establish this truth commission appear to be primarily an attempt to deflect international pressure at the Human Rights Council from genuine truth and justice.
While a process to deliver truth and justice is certainly needed, the current initiative lacks credibility and risks further harm to victims and their families. Instead, the government should get serious and deliver the truth that Sri Lankans desperately need.
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