Voicing concern over continuing impunity in Sri Lanka, the United States (US) points out that the Sri Lankan government has only taken minimal steps to identify and punish officials may have committed human rights abuses.
In a 66-page report on human rights practices in Sri Lanka last year, the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor emphasizes that a number of serious human rights violations including torture, arbitrary arrests, and extrajudicial killings have taken place in Sri Lanka.
The report was issued a few days before US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Julie Chung, appeared in a group photo with former Army Commander Shavendra Silva at a new year celebration organized by the government. In 2020, the US imposed a ban on Lieutenant General Silva over credible information of his involvement, through command responsibility, in gross violations of human rights, namely extrajudicial killings, by the 58th Division of the Sri Lanka Army during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s Civil War in 2009.
The 2022 report had also noted that the efforts made by the Sri Lankan government in that year to identify, investigate, and file cases against officials who had violated human rights or had engaged in acts of corruption were minimal. That report claimed that in such a context, both parties were entitled to impunity.
The 2023 report, has listed a large number of incidents pertaining to the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, enforcement of labour laws, and administrative irregularities.
Referring to no progress during the year in disappearance cases, the report said that there were 14 reported mass graves in the country pending investigation, and that most of them are in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
Excavation activities of the Kokkuthoduvai mass grave came to an indefinite halt last November as the Presidential Secretariat did not provide adequate funding. The Office of Missing Persons (OMP) had promised to provide the funds. Located in the war-affected Vanni area, the mass grave was initially found by accident. Excavations have unearthed around 40 skeletons.
“Impunity and lack of accountability for war-era abuses remained a problem. Disappearances during the war and its aftermath remained unresolved,” the US State Department report said.
“Families of disappeared and missing persons remained frustrated with the lack of progress investigating cases and the lack of answers from the government or OMP.”
The report points out that there was little progress investigating allegations of abuses from the 1983-2009 civil war or from the 1988-89 insurrection in the South.
Sri Lanka’s longest ongoing protest launched by Tamil relatives of those disappeared after surrendering to government defence forces in the final stages of the war as well as those who were abducted and disappeared during and following the war has been continuing for over 2,600 days. They demand that the fate of their relatives be revealed. 229 in search for the truth about their loved ones have passed away without answers, according to the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED).
“Impunity remained a significant problem characterized by a lack of accountability for abuses, particularly regarding government officials, military, paramilitary, police, and other security-sector officials,” the US State Department report added.
Citing civil society organizations, the report explained that the government including the courts remains reluctant to act against the defence forces alleged to be responsible for abuses.
“During the year, civil society organizations reported some Tamils from the north alleged police illegally detained and tortured them and questioned them regarding connections to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or participation in protests.”
Moreover, paying attention to human rights violations during detention, the report highlighted the case of Nagarasa Alex, who died in the custody of the Vaddukkottai police.
“Alex subsequently received hospital treatment on November 16 for injuries sustained from alleged police torture. A widely circulated video showed Alex describing the alleged police torture during a hospital interview. On November 19, police returned Alex to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, where hospital staff later pronounced him dead.”
Referring to the report issued by the Justice Ministry with regard to State Minister Lohan Ratwatte forcefully entering two prisons in 2021 and threatening Tamil detainees at gunpoint in the Anuradhapura Prison, the US State Department pointed out that the report has made six recommendations, including filing attempted murder charges against Ratwatte. At the time, Ratwatte served as the Prisons State Minister in the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration.
Earlier this year, President Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed Ratwatte as the State Minister of Plantation Industries and Mahaweli Development, while there are no reports of the justice ministry recommendations being implemented.
Discussing the status of detainees, the report showed that as of the end of August, 28,551 prisoners and suspects, including 1,065 women, were detained in a system with a capacity for 13,241.
“Prison cells meant for one prisoner were often occupied by three or four, at times resulting in inmates lacking sleeping space and adequate sanitary conditions.”
Pretrial detainees comprised approximately two-thirds of the detainee population. Inability to post bail, lengthy legal procedures, judicial inefficiency, and corruption often caused delays in releasing pretrial detainees. The report stressed that in Sri Lanka, it was common for the length of pretrial detention to equal or exceed the sentence for the alleged crime.
The report pointed out that on 18 January, the Parliament passed the Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill establishing a government agency to oversee mandated drug rehabilitation programs and requiring the government to build new treatment facilities. It expressed concerns over the government not implementing the new legislation by the end of October,.
Although the law prohibited arbitrary arrests and detention and provided for the right of any persons to challenge the lawfulness of their arrest or detention in court, the US State Department report explained, the government generally did not observe these requirements.
Despite the government’s announcement that a moratorium on the enforcement of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was in effect since March 2022, at least 15 arrests have been under the PTA since then.
“This included nine Tamils arrested in November for alleged use of illegal symbols or images glorifying the LTTE during participation in LTTE Great Heroes Day, an annual event to commemorate fallen LTTE fighters.”
The US State Department has paid attention to the Sinhalese mob attack on Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) Parliamentarian Selvarasa Gajendran, which occurred in Trincomalee while he was participating in a march to commemorate Thileepan, who died in a fast-unto-death protest against Indian troops. Furthermore, the report pointed out that TNPF Leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, was arrested in June in Colombo the day before he was scheduled to provide a statement to police.
On May 18, the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested four Muslims under the PTA, all of whom were witnesses in support of Muslim human rights attorney Hejaaz Hizbullah, who spent nearly 22 months in detention under the PTA.
The report explained that the PTA permitted government authorities to enter homes and monitor communications without judicial or other authorization, and that government authorities have reportedly monitored private movements without authorization.
The report accused the Sri Lankan government of showing more tolerance when it comes to hate speech against Muslims than against other groups. In addition, it paid attention to the report issued by the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) which said that the government misused the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to stifle freedom of expression.
With regard to land occupied by the military, the report said that many of those affected by the high-security zones complained that the pace at which the government demilitarized land was too slow, and that the military held land it viewed as economically valuable for military benefit.
“Some Hindu and Muslim groups reported they had difficulty officially claiming land they had long inhabited if Buddhist monks placed a statue of Buddha or a bodhi tree on their property, and they described these acts as part of a “colonialization” plan to dilute the concentration of minorities in the north.”
The US State Department report further highlighted that both Hill Country (Malaiyaha) Tamils and Tamils from the North and East maintained that they suffered long-standing, systematic discrimination in university education, government employment, housing, health services, and language laws.
