Geneva: The United Nations, after finding evidence “strongly indicating” that war crimes were committed in Sri Lanka during the end of its civil war, has called for a special “hybrid” international court to investigate people responsible for the atrocities.
Released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the 30th session of the UNHRC, the 220 page report found that both, the Lankan army forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had committed several violations during the decades long war in the island nations. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said the report wasn't exactly “earth shattering in terms of revelations” but would certainly provide “focus and clarity” and “a good foundation for criminal investigations to proceed”. He told reporters, “We have not cited names because we were looking at broader patterns of organisation and planning which breach the threshold of... war crimes and crimes against humanity... It was apparent that organisation and planning in the commission of many of these crimes.”
The Sri Lankan government has been pressurising for its own individual probe, resisting foreign scrutiny. The UN's report reads, “ Our investigation has laid bare the horrific level of violations and abuses that occurred in Sri Lanka, including indiscriminate shelling, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, harrowing accounts of torture and sexual violence, recruitment of children and other grave crimes.” Zeid remarked that, “The levels of mistrust in state authorities and institutions by broad segments of Sri Lanka society should not be underestimated.”
One of the most horrifying find of the investigation was the level of sexual violence committed against detainees by the Lankan security forces. Distressing testimonies from 30 survivors of sexual violence pointed out that the incidents were not isolated acts but part of a deliberate policy designed to inflict torture. It was also found that children were often abducted by the separatists from their homes, schools, temples and checkpoints and sent to the front lines as soldiers, while a group linked to the government had also recruited children. Enforced disappearances affected tens of thousands of Sri Lankans for decades, including throughout the 26-year armed conflict with the LTTE, the report said. “There are reasonable grounds to believe that enforced disappearances may have been committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population.”
“In particular, there are reasonable grounds to believe that a large number of individuals who surrendered during the final phase of the war were disappeared, and remain unaccounted for. Many others, including people not directly linked to the conflict, disappeared, typically after abduction in 'white vans',” the report added.
Campaign groups have said the report has “huge significance” and will not only shape Sri Lanka’s future but “could play a major part in defining what is lawful in modern warfare”. “There is now no doubt that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by both sides of Sri Lanka’s civil war, and that many of the tens of thousands of civilians who died in the early months of 2009 were murdered by their own government,” said Fred Carver, campaign director for the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice. “The only way to end this cycle of violence and to build a lasting peace in Sri Lanka is with prosecutions that will break the prevailing culture of impunity. The survivors of Sri Lanka’s civil war have made it clear that these prosecutions must be led by the international community.”
