Sri Lanka (Human Rights)

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sharma]

If the hon. Gentleman reads the full report, he will find out that all the figures are there. I am not totally ignoring what the Sri Lankan Government are saying, but we can pick up the figures from the facts and reports that are coming through and from the people we meet through our constituency casework. I am sure the Minister will talk about this, but the exact figures are in the report, and if the hon. Gentleman reads it fully, he will find them.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. On this point, does he agree that it would be useful if the Sri Lankan Government produced a list of all the prisoners they hold in their custody so that the matter can be cleared up once and for all?

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That is an important point, and I am sure we will get answers from other Members, the Minister or perhaps the high commissioner himself—his representative is sitting here and will be taking a note of these points.

It was only in November last year that the UN Committee Against Torture produced a damning report on allegations pertaining to the ongoing use of torture and ill treatment by state actors, including the military and police. Highlighting allegations of threats to, and harassment of, human rights defenders, defence lawyers, journalists and others, the committee stated:

“It regrets that, in many cases, those allegedly responsible for acts of intimidation and reprisal appear to enjoy impunity.”

In addition to his Government’s failure to promote and protect human rights, President Rajapaksa has failed to adhere to his 2009 commitment to

“address the aspirations and grievances of all communities”

and pursue meaningful reconciliation after decades of political violence and conflict. A political solution to the ethnic conflict through devolution and negotiations with Tamil and other minority political representatives has not been forthcoming. Instead, as the International Crisis Group noted, the Government’s post-war agenda

“has been further to centralise power, expand the role of the military, undermine local civilian authorities, and politicise the institutions that should uphold the rule of law and combat impunity”.

All those who now speak publicly against the Government are imprisoned, leaving an all-powerful family Government who are becoming more centralised and heavy-handed. Economist and opposition figure Harsha de Silva says the army is becoming involved in hotels, farming, construction, golf courses, sports stadiums and even in running roadside tea stalls. The main political threat to Rajapaksa’s rule is former general turned popular presidential candidate, Sarath Fonseka, who currently resides in a Colombo jail.

Colleagues of two political activists, Lalith Kumar Weeraraj and Kugan Murugananthan, who went missing in Sri Lanka’s north on 9 December, fear the men are in grave danger. On 9 January, hundreds of clamouring demonstrators marched through the capital, Colombo. They demanded that the Government release the activists, put an end to abductions in the north and pull the military out of former conflict areas. In fact, the opposite is happening.

Mr Weeraraj and Mr Murugananthan spent many of the months before they went missing campaigning on behalf of thousands of missing Tamils, many of whom were last seen in the custody of the security forces. The two were intercepted in the northern city of Jaffna by men on motorcycles. They were bundled into a white van and taken away. That pattern is now all too familiar. In a report in December, the LLRC wrote that it was alarmed by the large number of complaints of

“abductions, enforced or involuntary disappearances, and arbitrary detentions”.

Sinhalese and Muslims, who count as a separate ethnic group in Sri Lanka, are now being targeted in addition to Tamils, and some are turning up dead. On 3 January, Dinesh Buddhika Charitananda, a 25-year-old ethnic Sinhalese, was abducted at night. His body was later found near a river in a Colombo suburb. In October, Mohamed Niyas, a Muslim astrologer, was taken away in a white van by a group of gun-toting men and found dead three weeks later.

According to the Bangkok-based Asian Human Rights Commission, there is a “commonly held belief” that the abductions and murders are happening with

“the direct or indirect knowledge of the police and often also with the tacit approval of political authorities”.

The families of the two activists, Mr Weeraraj and Mr Murugananthan, have now petitioned the United Nations, and a spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the UN, says the case of the abductions is being sent to the UN Human Rights Council for investigation. The families turned to an international body because they could not get action from the local authorities.

Such allegations raise questions about the deportation of Sri Lankans from Britain. The UK Border Agency is to continue forced-removal flights, despite human rights organisations warning of mistreatment. The agency has carried out two large-scale deportations to Sri Lanka since June, the last of which left Luton airport in September, despite the concerns of several rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which believe that deported Tamils may be at risk of arbitrary arrest and mistreatment.

One London-based non-governmental organisation, Freedom from Torture, which provides medical services to torture victims, has said that it has gathered evidence demonstrating that prisoners in Sri Lanka still faced severe mistreatment this year—more than two years after the island’s 26-year civil war came to an end.

Last month, the UN Committee against Torture reported that it was

“seriously concerned about the continued and consistent allegations of widespread use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”,

after hearing submissions from a number of NGOs and the Sri Lankan Government. The committee also expressed concern at

“the prevailing climate of impunity”

in Sri Lanka.

In a case recently referred to in a UK Border Agency report, Freedom from Torture noted that, in spring this year, a Sri Lankan national known as Rohan was tortured after travelling back from the UK. According to Freedom from Torture, Rohan, who held a UK student visa, claimed that after returning to Sri Lanka to visit a sick relative, he was held by officials at Colombo airport and detained for three days, during which he was beaten and stripped and his skin was burned with heated metal. On the strength of his evidence of torture, he was later granted asylum in the UK.

The UK Border Agency has warned officials who are deciding asylum claims that NGOs have serious concerns about forcibly returned Tamils. However, the agency is also circulating a report that quotes senior Sri Lankan intelligence officials as saying that Tamil detainees are inflicting wounds on themselves to create scars that will support later asylum claims.

In the light of plans for a further mass removal flight on 28 February, I call upon the Government to do more to ensure that they are not returning individuals to a risk of torture in Sri Lanka. The fates of almost all those who have been returned on the charter flights thus far are unknown.

In response to concerns raised by Freedom from Torture about the risk of torture for Tamils returning to Sri Lanka, the Minister has provided public assurances about monitoring arrangements in place for those forcibly returned. He has indicated that for the recent charter flights, returnees were met by UK Government officials, provided with contact details for the British high commission in Colombo and given a small payment for onward travel. Against the backdrop of torture risks for those who return from abroad, there is widespread concern that those are woefully inadequate protections against torture. However, worse still, it is has just emerged that even those basic protections do not apply to anyone forcibly removed other than by charter flight.

Could the Minister please explain how many people have been forcibly removed to Sri Lanka otherwise than by charter flight since the civil war ended? Why are those forcibly returned on ordinary flights not met at the airport and provided with an assistance package? Why was that disparity in protection not disclosed when the Minister was asked to explain the monitoring arrangements for anyone forcibly returned to Sri Lanka? How does the Minister intend to remedy that protection gap? What do the Government intend to do to verify the safety of those returned in the months following their return?

Sri Lanka’s entire approach to accountability, justice and reconciliation must be challenged to prevent the setting of a dangerous precedent for the future. A failure to investigate alleged war crimes during the conflict undermines international law and respect for human rights and potentially sows the seeds for future conflict on the island.

Kofi Annan has stated that

“the international community cannot be selective in its approach to upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights.”

Impunity in Sri Lanka, where violations were on a massive scale and yet the UN failed to act, sets dangerous precedents. It sends a message to Sri Lankans that the UN is irrelevant there, and it could re-enforce that message globally. That could create a situation where states that have not ratified the Rome statute would feel that they are beyond the reach of international justice and that crimes committed in the name of combating terrorism can simply be ignored.

The international community’s failure to take timely action in 2009 endangered hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in Sri Lanka. Continued inaction threatens future generations and institutions that are critical to the protection of rights in Sri Lanka and internationally. Sri Lanka’s failure to ratify the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court means that the court cannot act without a referral from the United Nations Security Council. Far from referring the situation to the court, the UN has not even established an effective system to document the extent of violations. It has never revealed what it knew about the final days of conflict or acknowledged the scale of the abuse that took place. The end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka should have been an opportunity for the country to turn a page on impunity. It is crucial that the UN and the UK should support genuine international efforts to encourage the Sri Lankan Government to give better protection to the rights of all Sri Lankans and ensure that violations, which became so commonplace in the past, are not repeated.

I call on the Minister to address the clear failings of the LLRC to deliver progress on accountability and acknowledge the need for the international community to act decisively during this session of the UN Human Rights Council to put the necessary machinery in place and to ensure that the UK plays a proactive and leading role in efforts to secure the strongest possible resolution on accountability for serious human rights violations in Sri Lanka, that any Human Rights Council resolution is not limited to the conflict period and that it includes within its scope accountability for torture and other continuing violations that make it impossible to secure a sustainable peace in Sri Lanka.

Reconciliation and sustainable peace must be built on the foundations of a credible truth and accountability process for the alleged crimes committed in the final months of the civil war. A genuine mechanism for truth, accountability and justice would challenge the prevailing culture of impunity and could play an important role in reducing the perpetration of human rights abuses. However, such a process can be satisfactorily conducted only under international auspices. Investigations of a similar nature have been voted for and conducted by the UN Human Rights Council on Libya, Syria and Ivory Coast in recent months.

The number of concerned hon. Members present at this Westminster Hall debate demonstrates the strength of parliamentary support for strong diplomatic action to be taken by the British Government. Many other hon. Members who could not be here this morning, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who had a pressing constituency engagement, have assured me of their support; so it is not only the Members who are present who are concerned. Others who could not get here support my argument and ask for the same demands to be met.

The next generation of Sri Lankans, whether they are Tamil or otherwise, deserve a future in which they can move on from the horrors that they and their families have experienced and the losses they have suffered on all sides. They deserve to know what happened and to be able to reflect on it as one of the most significant times in their nation’s history, for which those responsible are brought to justice. Only then will there be true and lasting peace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

I cannot. I have four minutes.

I will deal with two or three major issues raised by colleagues in the debate. First, I will deal with the deportations, which is an important issue. All asylum and human rights applications from Sri Lankan nationals are carefully considered on their individual merits, in accordance with our international obligations and against the background of the latest available country information. The situation in Sri Lanka is still evolving, and where individuals can demonstrate that they face a real risk of prosecution and/or ill treatment on return, they are granted protection. It is only when the UK Border Agency and the courts are satisfied that an individual is not in need of international protection and has no leave to remain in the UK that removal is sought. We do not routinely monitor the treatment of individual unsuccessful asylum seekers once they are removed from the UK. They are, by definition, foreign nationals who have been found, as a matter of law, not to need the UK’s protection, and it would be inconsistent with such a finding for the UK to assume an ongoing responsibility for them when they return to their own country.

The Foreign Office follows the human rights situation in Sri Lanka closely. For chartered flight operations, we currently make a small payment to enable returnees to travel to their home town or village. We also ensure that UK Government representatives are present at the airport. Every returnee, whether on scheduled or chartered flights, is provided with the contact details of the British high commission in Colombo, should they want to make contact with the migration delivery officer based there.

We are aware of media allegations that returnees are being abused. All have been investigated by the high commission, and no evidence has been found to substantiate any of them.

[Heidi Alexander]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alistair Burt]

No. I hope the hon. Lady forgives me, but I have three minutes to deal with the rest of the issues.

The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall brought up the discrepancy between scheduled and chartered flights, which I acknowledge. As I said, we give everyone the same information, and we have been able to meet chartered flights. I have now asked colleagues in Colombo to see what we can do to meet scheduled flights as well, where that is practicable. I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that the same information is given to everyone to allow people to contact us in private—not the Sri Lankan authorities—and so far we have not been able to substantiate allegations. However, we remain open to anything that would do that, because it is essential that those returned are safe.

For the avoidance of doubt, I will also deal with the issues related to the Human Rights Council. We have raised the issue of Sri Lanka at the council under item 4, countries of concern. We also raised specifically the Channel 4 footage in the interactive dialogue with UN special reporters last June. We will continue to work with international partners to support Sri Lanka in its pursuit of enduring peace and reconciliation. We are aware that the US is preparing a draft resolution for the Human Rights Council, and we are likely to support it.

In relation to the Conservative Heads of Government—[Laughter.] If only. It was a Freudian slip. In relation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka next year, it is too early for us to make the same pronouncement as the Canadians. There is much to be done before the meeting. We are conscious, as everyone in Sri Lanka is, of the importance of that meeting and its ability to stand for the highest values of the Commonwealth. No one is unaware of that position.

I conclude by repeating some earlier remarks. A number of specific issues will be answered by letter. The ongoing question is, if such things are going on, what are we going to do? We will work with the Sri Lankan Government on the implementation of LLRC and other human rights recommendations to deliver what they have declared they will deliver. We will work with international partners—Commonwealth and others—to urge action in areas where adherence to Commonwealth or human rights values is still lacking. We are conscious of the power of international bodies, such as the Human Rights Council and CHOGM, to apply pressure and to encourage the raising of standards. We are also conscious of time scales. Our activity will be both public and private, and I will regularly update colleagues. No one should doubt that there is still much to do in Sri Lanka, and no one should doubt that the UK Government recognise that.