Sri Lanka

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on a speech that I know will have moved many of my friends here and in Sri Lanka, as it did me. She and others in this debate have been good and consistent friends to those campaigning for truth, justice and accountability in Sri Lanka.

I will not repeat all that we have heard about what happened during the 30 year-long war. Instead, I will focus on what has or has not happened since. It is a crime against humanity that nobody has been found accountable since the war ended 12 years ago. There has been a sleight of hand performance between then and now, with successive Governments promising the international community and their own people that they will do X, Y and Z, then drawing back, then promising again, but at the end of the day progress is never made, accountability never happens, reconciliation is never credibly attempted, and peace never really comes to this beautiful island.

I know exactly how beautiful Sri Lanka and its people are because I lived and worked in Galle on the south coast for a short time during the civil war. I cannot claim to have suffered because of it, but I certainly met many people who were suffering and heard stories and rumours of what was going on at the time. It was in the years afterwards, however, when I returned just after the war and was finally able to travel to the north and on two further visits, that I heard at first hand what had happened. People were still frightened. In fact, one man gave me a copy of the book that he had written about his account of abuses against the Tamil community. He was so afraid of what might happen to me, should I be caught reading it, that he removed the cover and replaced it with another.

It was on those visits that I made in the years after the war that I got a clearer picture of what had happened, and it was from my constituents as a Member of the Scottish Parliament from 2009 to 2011, from friends who stayed on to help rebuild Sri Lanka and from the people in Sri Lanka I have kept in touch with for the last 13 years that I got to understand more about what happened—about the internally displaced people camps, the missing people, the torture, the sexual violence and the shelling of so-called no-fire zones.

The reason for today’s debate is to urge the UK Government to do more. The Sirisena Government of 2015, about whom I was somewhat cynical, did co-sponsor the UN Human Rights Council resolution, and it was hoped that this would encourage further investigations into civil war crimes. To an extent it did, in that it established institutions with the functions of addressing the impact of the war, but not much more happened and the operation of these institutions has been hampered by successive Governments.

I will also acknowledge that the UK Government have played a vital role as leaders of the core group on Sri Lanka within the Human Rights Council, but it is clear now in which direction the Sri Lankan Government are heading, and the UK Government must step up their commitment to reconciliation, accountability and human rights. Separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary have been grossly undermined by amendments to the constitution. I believe the 20th amendment, which removes almost every check on the executive powers of the President, to be the most significant signal that there is no respect for the rule of law. Donald Trump is an amateur compared with this guy.

The new Government are led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was the Defence Secretary in the final throes of the war. The President’s brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President at the time of the civil war, has been appointed Prime Minister, and we have heard about the nine other family members holding senior positions in that Government. The Rajapaksa brothers are credibly accused of a host of crimes during the war, and of violating international humanitarian and human rights law, yet there they are, President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, with all the checks and balances removed. They have consistently blocked, undermined and obstructed investigations and court cases. The missing are still missing. As we have heard, the President recently pardoned a soldier—one of the few ever to be tried, let alone found guilty. The soldier was guilty of the killing of eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers. I can only assume that was all part of his promise to end what he calls the

“era of betraying war heroes”.

As an MSP, I met two teenage girls living in Glasgow. They were Tamils who had sought asylum because, as children, they had watched their father shot to death in front of them by a Sri Lankan army soldier. He made them watch as he put a bullet through their dad’s brain. Should that soldier be tried, or should he be hailed as a war hero, while the world looks on, simply shrugging its shoulders?

I back the calls on the UK Government from previous speakers and the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, and I will reiterate just a few of those. In terms of trade, Sri Lanka should be removed from enhanced framework level until it meets the conditions set and agreed to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act—an Act that allows arbitrary detention and strips the rights to due process for those detained. Their armed forces need to stop training their army until they satisfy the conditions, set and agreed to, on human rights. The Minister needs to establish a screening policy for diplomatic meetings, so that the UK is no longer giving legitimacy to individuals critically accused of war crimes.

Finally, I would suggest that we engage the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 to apply sanctions against individuals credibly accused of involvement in mass atrocities. Shavendra Silva would be a start. It is the very least the victims of this war, both living and dead, both here and there, can expect from us.