Tamils Rights: Sri Lanka

Debate between James Berry and Stephen Pound

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Tamil people’s rights in Sri Lanka.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I am particularly grateful that we have the opportunity to debate human rights in Sri Lanka in the same week that the UN Human Rights Council begins considering the same subject in its 30th session in Geneva. In the closing stages of the Sri Lankan civil war, 400,000 Tamil civilians were on the run as Government forces advanced and overrun the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam: the LTTE, or Tamil Tiger forces.

On 21 January 2009, the Sri Lankan Government announced the creation of a so-called no-fire zone: an area of 35 square kilometres where the fleeing civilians could take refuge. Many civilians fled to the no-fire zone expecting safety. Instead, that no-fire zone was heavily and systematically shelled by the Government. It is beyond sensible dispute that thousands of civilians were killed in that no-fire zone.

The UN was also operating in the no-fire zone. UN field workers ran a food distribution hub there. When an area nearby came under shelling from heavy ordnance, the UN field workers provided their GPS co-ordinates to the Government to ensure that ordnance was redirected. Three to four hours later, they came under a barrage of heavy mortar attack at those co-ordinates. There is clear evidence for this. The evidence is not from the Tamil Tigers, nor even from Tamil civilians, but from United Nations field workers. They themselves were there in the no-fire zone.

By early February 2009, the Government had overrun the first no-fire zone and created a second one on a beach in the east of the island. This no-fire zone was also heavily and systematically shelled by Government forces. In the second no-fire zone, which contained hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians living in makeshift tents, there were just six doctors. Those doctors were working in the most horrific, dangerous and squalid conditions, yet they were denied basic supplies such as antibiotics and blood by the Government. It is estimated that the locations in which the doctors operated from, which included an abandoned school, were shelled some 65 times. Indeed, the attacks were so consistent that the doctors asked the International Committee of the Red Cross not to provide their GPS co-ordinates to the Government: something that is standard practice to avoid medical facilities being bombed in times of war. I have heard direct evidence about this from one of the doctors who was working bravely in that makeshift medical centre.

I should add that the Sri Lankan Government forces by no means had the monopoly on human rights abuses at the end of the war in Sri Lanka. Tamil civilians were also subjected to a variety of horrors at the hands of the LTTE, including being used as human shields. However, it is important that the two are not conflated. The all-party group for Tamils, which I chair and of which various Members from different parties are here today, is concerned with Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka and in the non-resident community, which includes many of our constituents, many of whom suffered terribly. We have no truck with the LTTE, which is a terrorist organisation that I condemn absolutely. Equally, we have no truck with those who label the people who stand up for Tamil rights in Sri Lanka as LTTE sympathisers.

With that caveat, I should add that there is compelling evidence that the laws of war and international human rights laws were breached with respect to LTTE—or suspected LTTE—captives after their surrender. There is evidence that LTTE members holding white flags of surrender were none the less shot by Government forces. There is clear evidence that female Tamil captives were sexually abused before being shot, and there is clear evidence in the form of sickening video footage of Government soldiers shooting Tamils—presumably LTTE fighters—in the head while they were on their knees, blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs. The comparison with the gruesome footage of executions released by the barbaric Daesh in Syria is obvious.

The UN has estimated that in the closing stages of the civil war between January and May 2009, some 40,000 civilians died. Most of those were Tamil. Although that period was not the beginning nor the end of the human rights abuses suffered by people from all sides of the conflict in Sri Lanka, it is justice for the human rights abuses in that period that we are primarily concerned with today.

In response to the Sri Lankan Government’s abject failure to secure accountability for the deaths, on 22 June 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a UN panel of experts to consider alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law during the final stages of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. The panel reported on 31 March 2011. In its excoriating report, which I will quote from briefly, it lay blame on both sides. Its executive summary stated:

“The Panel’s determination of credible allegations reveals a very different version of the final stages of the war than that maintained to this day by the Government...The Government says it pursued a ‘humanitarian rescue operation’ with...‘zero civilian casualties.’ In stark contrast, the Panel found credible allegations, which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law was committed both by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during both war and peace."

Instead of engaging with the UN report in a meaningful or sensible way, the Sri Lankan Government arrogantly rejected it, describing it as “fundamentally flawed” and “patently biased”. Sri Lanka did nothing to address the alleged human rights abuses at the end of the war. Not a single prosecution was instigated. It is reasonable to surmise that the Sri Lankan Government hoped that the international community would turn the other way.

But the United Kingdom did not look the other way. In November 2013, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting convened in Sri Lanka. Some of the heads of state who were invited, such as Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, chose to boycott the meeting in protest at the Sri Lankan Government’s record on human rights. Our Prime Minister, who was urged not to attend, did attend to encourage progress on human rights. Away from the Government’s stage-managed photo opportunities, our Prime Minister bravely used the opportunity to visit the north and to hear at first hand the harrowing accounts from Tamil civilians.

Plainly moved by those accounts, and Sri Lanka’s ongoing and abject failure to investigate human rights abuses, the Prime Minister used the March 2014 session of the UN Human Rights Council to call for a full and independent investigation into human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. I am proud that Britain led the calls for an independent investigation. I am proud that David Cameron and his allies at the UNHRC delivered a resolution requiring an independent investigation. It should not be forgotten that this was not an easy sell on the council. In fact, of the 47 members, only 23 countries voted positively for the resolution; 12 abstained and 12 voted against.

Welcoming the resolution, our Prime Minister said:

“This is a victory for the people of Sri Lanka who need to know the truth about what happened during those terrible years of the civil war so that they can move forward. Today’s outcome has been triggered by the failure of the Sri Lankan government to stand by its promises to credibly and independently investigate alleged violations on both sides during the war."

On Monday, the UNHRC met for its 30th session in Geneva. At the end of the session on 30 September, the council will consider the UN’s report, which is expected to be published tomorrow, and what the next steps should be with respect to Sri Lanka. I believe my right hon. Friend the Minister returned from Geneva yesterday. In this debate, I would like to ask the Government to consider two things: first, the grave doubts of many Tamil people about the fairness of any domestic justice mechanism, and secondly, whether the UN Human Rights Council can be used as an opportunity for pressure to be put on the Sri Lankan Government to take action in a wider respect in the north and the east.

As for the accountability mechanism, the Sri Lankan Government have in the past and continue to this day to reject absolutely an international mechanism for determining human rights abuses of the form that we saw in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Cambodia post-conflict. When there are serious allegations on both sides of a conflict of an international human rights nature, the Government’s reasons for rejecting an international mechanism should be scrutinised most closely.

To be clear, many Tamils reject a domestic mechanism. That is the point of view of the Tamil National Alliance, which has just won 16 parliamentary seats in the August elections; it is the view of the Chief Minister of the Northern Province, which is predominantly Tamil; and it is the view of the British Tamils Forum and of the Global Tamil Forum, which the BTF is part of. Put simply, they do not see any difference between the conditions in 2014, which led to the UNHRC’s resolution for an international investigation over a domestic one, and those that exist today.

There are three principal objections to a domestic tribunal. First, how can the victims of alleged horrendous human rights abuses have any confidence in the fairness or the impartiality of a tribunal convened by a Government comprised of a number of the people accused of those very abuses?

The easy answer to that question would be that in January 2015 a new President— President Sirisena—was elected, which heralds a new era. But as human rights groups have pointed out, President Sirisena is the same man who was the acting Defence Minister in the final days of the civil war, when most civilian casualties occurred. And many people in top-ranking Government, military and other state positions remain the same. General Fonseka, the Commander of Armed Forces at the end of the civil war, was recently promoted to the rank of field marshal. Major General Jagath Dias, commander of the 57th division, whose units stand accused of committing some of the worst human rights abuses at the end of the civil war, was promoted to Army Chief of Staff just this May.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this most timely and extremely relevant debate. Bearing in mind the rather unfortunate history of other countries intervening in Sri Lanka, be they Scandinavian countries or India, who does he suggest should be the agency behind the independent commission to examine what is undoubtedly a series of incidents that could be described by any impartial person as war crimes?

[James Berry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The form of the mechanism will obviously be debated at the UNHRC and in my view it will be led by the United Nations, and will be under their guidance.

[Stephen Pound]

Under the United Nations?

[James Berry]

Yes.

For the reasons I just mentioned, it is small wonder that many Tamil people have little faith in the Government to convene a fair and impartial justice mechanism.

The second objection to a domestic inquiry is that Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome statute; its domestic laws do not cover a number of the international laws that were breached by both sides, credible evidence of which is found in the 2011 UN report. So, as a bare minimum for a domestic mechanism, Sri Lanka’s domestic laws must cover each and every law that was breached; again, the UN has found credible evidence for those breaches in its new report, which is due to be issued tomorrow.

The third objection to a domestic inquiry is the lack of confidence of witnesses to come forward. A number of the witnesses who the UN spoke to, both when it prepared its new report and when it prepared its report in 2011, only spoke to it on condition of strict anonymity. Many Tamil victims of and witnesses to human rights abuses have fled the country and been granted asylum in countries such as the UK and Canada because of the fate they suffered in Sri Lanka. They would fear returning to Sri Lanka to participate in a tribunal where the prosecutors and indeed the witness protection, if there was any, were to be provided by the Sri Lankan Government.

Moreover, international human rights groups and charities have recently published reports detailing worrying ongoing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. A number of these groups and charities exist in the UK. Freedom from Torture, a British charity, produced a report in August that cited evidence of human rights abuses since the ceasefire. So, between May 2009 and this year, there is evidence that the Sri Lankan military, police and intelligence services have practised torture, including rape and extensive burning. So, what confidence can witnesses have in coming forward in a perceived climate of fear, especially when it is believed that witnesses who have come forward previously have suffered as a result?

I recognise that there appears to be little appetite among the UNHRC members at its current summit for a fully independent justice mechanism. That is obviously disappointing, but perhaps it is unsurprising given how tight the vote was back in 2014 for an independent investigation. If it really is the case that there is no international appetite for an independent inquiry, it is probably right that there is little to be gained by Britain going out on a limb. Nevertheless, I ask the Minister to do what he can to ensure that the justice mechanism is a robust one, preferably with UN involvement both in the prosecution and the judicial tribunal.