Sri Lanka

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, has a long record of engagement in Sri Lanka, and over the years, the Governments there will have been very grateful to him for that support. I thank him for his detailed briefing documents, which other speakers have clearly derived information from, even though these do not quite square with the material I received from the House of Lords Library and elsewhere.

It was very welcome when the long-standing conflict in Sri Lanka came to an end. Its conclusion was very brutal, as the Government sought the total defeat of the Tamils. The UN claims that during this final offensive as many as 40,000 civilians were killed. The human rights abuses allegedly committed against the Tamils included enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrest, though both sides have been accused of war crimes.

When President Sirisena, although a former ally of Rajapaksa’s, was elected in 2015, it was a surprise win over the former President, who had a reputation for having encouraged severe repression of the minority Tamils. It was seen as a step in the right direction. The new President was backed by the Tamil National Alliance, as well as Tamil-speaking Muslims, largely due to his expressed commitment to reconciliation and government accountability. In coalition government, Mr Wickremasinghe—I apologise if I have not pronounced that correctly—became his Prime Minister, and halting but insufficient steps were taken toward addressing issues of accountability, missing persons, governance and land usage.

The last year has seen a move away from this settlement. The President dismissed the Prime Minister in October 2018 and, astonishingly, installed Rajapaksa instead. The original Prime Minister refused to step down. MPs voted to reinstate him twice, upon which the President tried to dissolve Parliament. He also attempted to call a snap election. Rajapaksa began operating with his own newly formed Cabinet, but an appeals court restrained this. In December, the Supreme Court ruled that the President had acted unconstitutionally; the original Prime Minister was reinstated. One of the encouraging features of this crisis has been the way in which the courts have played a key role in upholding the Sri Lankan constitution. In this unstable situation, should the international community back away from the Human Rights Council resolutions in the light of the US withdrawal, which three noble Lords have just indicated should happen?

Resolution 30/1 in 2015 outlined many steps that the Government should take towards truth, justice, reparation and the prevention of human rights violations. Resolution 34/1 in 2017 called for any outstanding elements of the original resolution to be fully implemented. Sri Lanka co-sponsored both resolutions alongside the UK, the US, Macedonia and Montenegro. These resolutions will expire in March 2019, which is why this debate is indeed timely.

The implementation of these resolutions has been very slow. The first resolution committed to establishing four transitional justice mechanisms, including an Office on Missing Persons, an Office for Reparations, a truth and reconciliation commission and a judicial mechanism to investigate violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. So far, only one of these goals has been partially met, with the formation of the Office on Missing Persons in September 2018. However, the recommendations in the interim office’s reports have not been implemented by the Government, although the briefing of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, tells us that the Ministry of Finance is looking to include necessary funds in this year’s budget. Can the Minister say whether the UK Government understand that to be the case? Does he have any explanation as to why this is taking so long?

A Bill to create an Office for Reparations was narrowly passed in October 2018 but no concrete steps towards implementation have yet been taken. The briefing of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, states that nominations to this office will be approved by the President. Is the Minister concerned about that? The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act remains in place, despite the recommendation to review and repeal it. New anti-terror legislation is under review but is still not up to international legal standards. Some steps have indeed been taken on returning land. In October 2018, the President finally called on authorities to return land in the north and east by the end of the year. The noble Lord’s briefing reiterates this. However, Amnesty notes that the authorities are yet to comply fully with this request and emphasises that many communities remain displaced.

Amnesty also notes that welcome investigations have been opened into attacks on journalists, human rights defenders, religious minorities and civil society organisations. These investigations, however, have not resulted in any convictions. It describes,

“dismayingly limited progress on accountability for torture, rape, sexual abuse and gender-based violence”.

Sri Lanka established a consultative task force on reconciliation in January 2016. Over 7,000 Sri Lankans were consulted for the task force’s report, which urged the Government to chart a road map for fulfilling the UNHRC resolutions. But according to Amnesty the Government have ignored the task force’s findings, with the Minister of Justice saying that he had “no confidence” in them.

Under Resolution 30/1, a judicial mechanism—including the participation of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, also referred to as hybrid courts—was proposed by the Sri Lankan Government. To date, there has been no progress on this front. In fact, the Government have backtracked on their own commitments. In 2018, the President called for the international community to give Sri Lanka the room to solve the problems it is facing on its own. Government officials have rejected the involvement of foreign nationals in the hybrid courts. This kind of hybrid court surely must be held to, as was the case in Cambodia.

Many Tamils and most of the international community feel that reconciliation has stalled. For example, the President was meant to bring about a new constitution that would devolve more powers to the provinces, including land registration and police power, which would increase Tamil self-determination. Talks on constitutional reform have been gridlocked and devolution is now seen as a broken promise. The Tamil advocacy group Together Against Genocide has said that the Foreign Minister’s international statements are contradicted by what senior government officials do in practice; the Verité Research Group has echoed this.

In 2017, after a fact-finding mission, UN special rapporteur Pablo de Greiff said that the reconciliation process had become increasingly ethnicised, with transitional justice,

“represented as if it were essentially a threat to the majority community”.

The UK has supported implementation of the resolutions through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. The programme’s mandate will expire in 2019. What plans are there to renew it? With the US’s withdrawal from the Human Rights Council, there is concern that there will be less pressure put on Sri Lanka to implement the resolutions. The US has said that it will continue to engage with Sri Lanka on truth and reconciliation, despite its withdrawal, but no concrete steps have yet been announced. Can the Minister report on any discussions with the US on this matter?

Amnesty notes:

“As the tenth anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s internal conflict looms in May, progress on UN Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 has proceeded at a glacial pace, the hopes of the victims of crimes under international law and human rights violations and abuses during the conflict have been reduced to a flicker”.


This does not argue for the international community to back away. Clearly, as we saw last year, Sri Lanka is in an unstable political situation. Progress thus far is of course to be welcomed, particularly the role of the courts in last year’s political manoeuvres, but progress must be put in the context of what has been promised and needs to be achieved. It would be premature to remove any of the pressure on Sri Lanka to adhere to the Human Rights Council’s conclusions and I hope that the Minister will share that view.