Sri Lanka (Human Rights)

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

It is pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of human rights in Sri Lanka at a significant moment in the country’s post-conflict history. Next week will see the start of the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Among the many pressing human rights issues from around the world that are due to be discussed, a debate and vote are likely on whether an independent, international commission of inquiry should be established to investigate the credible allegations of war crimes perpetrated at the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s armed conflict in 2009. I, and many hon. Members present today, urge the Government to take action; I believe strongly that an international investigation must be initiated. The creation of an international inquiry has been called for by the world’s leading human rights and conflict prevention bodies, and, most significantly, by the UN Secretary-General’s panel of experts on Sri Lanka.

An estimated 40,000 civilians, many of whom were Tamils, died during the final days and weeks of the war. The victims and their families deserve to know the truth about what happened, and those responsible should be held to account.

A credible and independent inquiry is not possible within Sri Lanka, and President Rajapaksa’s regime has sought to censor and condemn anyone who has raised concerns about the Government’s actions during the war. The recently released report by Sri Lanka’s discredited Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission—the LLRC— whitewashed credible allegations of Government atrocities.

Sri Lanka has a long history of failing to investigate abuses of human rights, and without an international investigation, I fear that truth, accountability and justice will become yet another casualty of Sri Lanka’s long and bloody conflict. Without such an investigation, the pervasive culture of impunity in Sri Lanka that has such a detrimental impact on human rights on the island will continue unchecked. Without an international investigation and accountability for war crimes, prospects for reconciliation and long-lasting peace will diminish.

I wish to focus on three key areas that are fundamental to the debate on human rights in Sri Lanka: first, the failure of the President’s regime and the LLRC to address war crimes allegations; secondly, how that failure must be set in the context of the failure by the current Government—and previous Governments—to enact effective processes of accountability for human rights abuses; and finally, how those two elements reflect and encourage the culture of impunity that exists in Sri Lanka.

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on his excellent speech. Does he agree that another problem in Sri Lanka is that it is considered the fourth most dangerous place for the media? Some 40 journalists have been killed, and it is therefore impossible to get an internal, independent voice.

[Mr Sharma]

I fully support my right hon. Friend’s intervention, and I will develop that point later in my speech.

The UN panel of experts, two UN special rapporteurs on extra-judicial killings, the US State Department, the European Commission, Channel 4, the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the elders and others, have documented allegations of egregious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that were committed by the Government and the Tamil Tigers during Sri Lanka’s conflict. The Sri Lankan authorities, however, have continually refused to address adequately those serious claims. The findings of the UN panel of experts, which stated that,

“most civilian casualties in the final phase of the war were caused by government shelling”

were dismissed as “fundamentally flawed.”

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He has referred on a number of occasions to the report by the UN panel of experts, which I am sure he has read in full. How does he equate his comments with the acknowledgement in paragraph 53 of that report that

“this account should not be taken as proven facts, and any effort to determine specific liabilities would require a higher threshold.”?

Is it not clear that, while the report sets out a narrative and raises legitimate concerns, it must not be taken as a factual account?

[Mr Sharma]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will develop that argument later in my remarks. The demand for information from other sources indicates that there is a flaw and that further investigations are needed.

The Channel 4 documentary, “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”, is horrifying, and—I am sure all hon. Members will agree—made for difficult viewing. Disturbing footage captured on mobile phones as war trophies, by both Tamils under attack and Government soldiers, showed the extra-judicial executions of prisoners and the aftermath of the targeted shelling of civilian camps. Dead female Tamil fighters appeared to have been raped or sexually assaulted, abused and murdered.

Since its original transmission, the programme has been screened at the UN in Geneva and New York, and shown to politicians at the European Parliament and US Senate. It has prompted comments from leading political figures in the UK and around the world. The programme has been denounced by the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, as depicting “baseless accusations” of Government atrocities. Last week, however, the Sri Lankan army announced that it has appointed a five-member court of inquiry to examine the evidence shown in the programme, as well as the report by the presidentially-appointed war panel, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. A follow-up programme is to be aired next month, exploring the reasons behind the apparent international inaction after accusations of war crimes. The work of two UN special rapporteurs, who have authenticated footage of war time abuses in Sri Lanka, has been similarly dismissed.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I am impressed with what the hon. Gentleman is saying, as, I am sure, is the whole House. Surely, however, the tribunal that has been announced by the Sri Lankan army is a welcome development. That the army is willing to investigate allegations of offences committed by its soldiers is a move that one would expect from armed forces in any democratic society and must be welcome.

[Mr Sharma]

We all welcome such a move, but later in my remarks I will argue that people are suspicious about such tribunals and also about the commission’s inquiries.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is not it of some concern when the army is investigating itself, and was not the LLRC report meant to be the report that went into all the issues that people were concerned about? That is the failure in this instance, and we need to address it in this debate.

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I agree with the point that he raises.

For more than two years, Sri Lanka maintained that it pursued a “humanitarian rescue operation” in the final stages of the war, with a policy of “zero civilian casualties”. Not until August 2011 did the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry concede for the first time that Government forces caused civilian deaths, but they took no responsibility for violating the laws of war. Indeed, the LLRC was appointed by President Rajapaksa only in the wake of domestic and international pressure to deal with issues of wartime accountability.

From its inception in May 2010 to the release of its long-delayed report in December 2011, the LLRC has shown that it is not fit for purpose. According to the UN panel of experts on Sri Lanka, the LLRC failed to satisfy international standards for independence and impartiality; it was compromised by its composition and the deep-seated conflicts of interest of some of its members. The UN panel stated that the LLRC mandate was

“not tailored to investigating allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, or to examining the root causes of the decades-long ethnic conflict”.

In essence, it was a “deeply flawed” accountability mechanism.

The concerns that I have set out have only been reaffirmed with the publication of the LLRC report. The LLRC’s conclusions on the prosecution of the conflict contradict many of the findings of the UN panel of experts, with Government forces largely exonerated of any culpability for alleged atrocities. In the light of that, many countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as international non-governmental organisations, have criticised the LLRC’s failure adequately to address the allegations of war crimes.

The British Government have stated that

“many credible allegations of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, including from the UN panel of experts report, are either not addressed or only partially answered.”—[Official Report, 12 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 21WS.]

They say that the LLRC report does not provide a serious and full response to the evidence of the UN panel, the UN special rapporteurs or the “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” documentary. Indeed, following the broadcast of that programme last June, the British Government stated that if Sri Lanka did not respond positively to the findings and recommendations of the UN panel report and the concerns of the international community, they would support calls to

“revisit all options available to press the Sri Lankan government to fulfil its obligations”.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Like all of us, I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s extremely well researched and detailed speech. In connection with the issue of the LLRC’s credibility, he will be familiar with the Amnesty International report titled “Twenty Years of Make-Believe”, which lists all the previous problems with these commissions. Is he aware of any credible body, agency or nation anywhere on earth that gives credibility to the LLRC’s report? We have heard many people say that it has no credibility. Is anyone speaking on the other side?

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for that timely intervention. I am sure that the Minister will respond to it. I cannot at this stage find whether there is anyone such as my hon. Friend describes, but I will definitely be looking through the papers to see whether I can find anyone.

Given that the British Government have consistently called for a credible and independent inquiry into

“all allegations of grave abuses”,

it follows that the UK should be willing to support an investigation under international auspices, in the light of the LLRC’s unsatisfactory conclusions. It is clear that independent credible investigations of human rights abuses cannot be achieved within Sri Lanka. The actions of the Rajapaksa regime and the conclusions of the LLRC support that case. Indeed, the need for an international investigation becomes even more acute when set against the backdrop of systematic Government failure to provide credible processes of accountability for rights abuses over many years. The current and previous Sri Lankan Administrations have established a number of domestic commissions of inquiry to investigate human rights abuses. However, they have often failed to provide accountability and justice for the violations identified.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful case. Does he agree that this is not just a matter of looking back at what happened and ensuring that it is properly and fully investigated? The UN Committee Against Torture, in its examination of Sri Lanka last November, concluded that it has serious concerns about

“the continued and consistent allegations of widespread use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of suspects in police custody”.

The report also states that

“torture and ill-treatment perpetrated by state actors, both the military and the police, have continued in many parts of the country after the conflict ended in May 2009 and is still occurring in 2011”.

It is the UN Committee Against Torture reporting that. This is not a matter simply of looking back to what happened before and during the war.

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Is not the issue one of accountability and not that we simply want to dismiss the LLRC report? Amnesty itself says that the report contained some good human rights recommendations. The Sri Lankan Government say that they themselves are capable of prosecuting violators in a court of law. Is not the issue how a high standard is brought to bear and people are properly held to account?

[Mr Sharma]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I think that it would be better if I continued my speech, because the answers to the questions being raised now are ones that I will be developing later in my speech. I will definitely return to the issue.

Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system, which has been weakened in recent years due to the centralisation of power with the President, cannot even offer a credible domestic avenue to pursue accountability. As Amnesty International has stated, the system

“is subject to political pressure, lacks effective witness protection and is glacially slow…The system is so degraded that the vast majority of human rights violations over the past 20 years have never been investigated, let alone heard in court.”

That is the point that my learned colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), raised.

The failure to hold those responsible to account for rights abuses has led to the development of a culture of impunity in Sri Lanka where anything goes, particularly in the Tamil majority areas of the north and the east. The militarisation of the region and the resultant impact on independent, civilian administration means that many Tamils fear that their culture and identity are under existential threat.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. I agree with all the points that he has made so far. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) highlighted the ongoing human rights abuses. Does that not call into question the decision of the current UK Government to deport many Tamil refugees who are in the UK? Should we not seek from the Minister replying to the debate an explanation of the Government’s policy on deportations back to Sri Lanka? I ask that question of my hon. Friend in the context of a constituent whose brother is about to be deported back to Sri Lanka. This is a brother who lost a sister fighting for the Tamil Tigers and who understandably is worried about what will happen to his last relative should the family history be known when he returns to Sri Lanka.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) for his intervention. I am sure that the Minister has taken note of his question and will answer it. I will definitely be developing that issue later in my speech as well.

More than 160,000 people who were displaced at the end of the war and in the years before 2009 remain in camps or are living with host communities or in transit situations. Many live in tents and are without access to the most basic amenities, such as health care, sanitation, housing and education. Terrible human rights abuses are being perpetrated. Murder, assault, corruption, torture and sexual harassment are commonplace. Although wartime emergency laws have been rescinded, draconian powers of arrest and detention remain in effect. Thousands of suspected ex-combatants are still being detained without trial or access to legal representation.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s case, and I have spoken on behalf of the Tamil community a number of times, but he has just said that thousands of people are still being detained. At the end of the war, political prisoners—ex-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam cadres—numbered 11,000; the Sri Lankan Government now say they still have 300 in detention. Will the hon. Gentleman explain exactly where he thinks the rest of those who are in detention are? We do this cause no good if we are not accurate.

[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.

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, I want to point out that I intend to start the wind-ups at about 10.40. As hon. Members can see, many of them want to speak, so I ask right hon. and hon. Members to be as brief as they can. Let us try to allow as many hon. Members to speak as possible.