Immediate international action in Sri Lanka: AHRC

By Paul Emmanuel

COLOMBO - The human rights group, Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on the eve of International human rights day on Monday December 10, urged immediate international action in Sri Lanka to prevent abductions and killings of civilians.

In a statement marking international human rights day, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said Sri Lanka had the highest frequency of cases of disappearances in the world reported to the United Nations.

"The present situation requires immediate scrutiny and action on the part of the UN and the international community," the AHRC said in a statement. It also added that there were virtually no investigations into abuses.

Even though the government of Sri Lanka has continuously refused to allow international monitoring of its human rights record, the AHRC said "the international community must examine whether it is justifiable to remain inactive purely on the grounds of the government's unwillingness to allow intervention to stop the high levels of violence in the country."

Summing up the year in review, the AHRC said, “At the beginning of the year the human rights groups linked to the AHRC issued a ‘wish list’. However, none of these wishes have been fulfilled by the government of Sri Lanka. The government’s performance in 2007 has been a complete disappointment and this neglect has ended in disastrous results to individuals, groups and the society at large. During this year Sri Lanka was once again ranked as a failed state, it also went up in the corruption index and the index on violations of freedom of expression.”

"Virtually no investigations are taking place concerning violations of rights in any part of the country, either under the control of the government or the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," it said.

“All attempts to have local investigations were shut down. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which had been instituted to investigate into several well known cases did not make any progress and in fact, the public impression is that this commission is being used merely for creating an incorrect assumption of there being some investigations when, in fact, no such investigations are taking place,” It further said.

Blaming the government for the current status of affairs, the AHRC said, “The Sri Lankan government resisted attempts by several government and human rights organisations to convince it of the need for an international human rights monitoring mission in order to break the deadlock that exists regarding investigations into human rights issues. The government’s resistance was so vehement that it declared all such requests for international monitoring amounted to threats to the sovereignty of the nation and were ill-motivated. The words, invasion, intervention and a plot of the imperialists, were used to denigrate these requests.”

Reports of serious human rights violations have recorded in island nation since the 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce between the government and Tamil Tigers began to unravel in December 2005.