Govt. must hold domestic investigations on war crimes, prosecute offenders, clear name of armed forces

 The Government must change course in the UNHRC on war crimes issues. A local investigation of allegations does not mean admission of war crimes

The Anura Kumara Dissanayake led people’s Government and the country’s armed forces must consider seriously the advice given by President’s Counsel Anura Meddegoda, in a media interview published in an English daily (the Daily Mirror) on Friday 11 October, urging that Sri Lanka must investigate through domestic mechanism the war crimes allegedly committed during the war on the LTTE. 

Meddegoda had said, “If war crimes aren’t investigated (here), even political leaders might face travel restrictions.” In my view, not only political leaders but also investigators, prosecutors and even judges and their families, who fail to uphold human right laws may get exposed not only for international travel restrictions but also for other forms of legal harassments.

Anura Meddegoda PC had served for nearly a decade assisting the International Criminal Court (ICC) Geneva with reference to the human rights violations in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. Prior to that, he had served in the Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka for nearly two decades. He is also the current President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), though his views have been made in his personal capacity. 

He is spot on, when he says Sri Lankan political leaders can be prosecuted in the ICC for alleged war crimes, even though we are not parties to the Rome Statute. 

It is understandable that the three-member new Cabinet may not have had reasonable time to give fresh ‘course changing’ directions to the Foreign Ministry, which continued the former Governments’ policy on the matter at the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) sessions, concluded on Friday 11 October 2024. The Government must, as advised, opt for ‘internal investigations of war crimes’ and avoid external interferences as a matter of priority soon after the 14/11 general elections.

A genuine domestic investigation into the war crimes alleged against the armed forces as well as the LTTE and prosecutions of suspected offenders will help clear the armed forces from the oft repeated accusations of war crimes alleged against the country. Prosecutions of offenders if any will bring to an end, the otherwise much more harmful consequences of the HRC set up special mechanism on Sri Lanka, which is already engaged in monitoring, collecting and reporting on the situation of human rights in Sri Lanka. At the just concluded Geneva sessions, the HRC has not only extended the period for collection of evidence but has also decided to ‘reinforce’ the HRC’s capacity to collect evidence of Sri Lanka’s HR violations. 

Instead of rejecting outright the HRC resolution 51/1, domestic investigations and prosecutions as suggested by Meddegoda would certainly be in the national interest, given also the fact that the powerful core group pushing the war crimes allegations in the international fora includes the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada amongst others. More importantly, in order to overcome our economic plight, we need to work with the Western controlled international financial institutions. ICC prosecutions will be in addition to possible arrest and prosecutions under the extra territorial jurisdictions envisaged by the UNHRC in any country that chooses to prosecute, with evidence being collected not only of war crimes but also all other reported cases of human rights violations, based on Sri Lankan constitutional provisions as well as under international human rights and humanitarian laws as the prosecuting country decides. The Government must change course in the UNHRC on war crimes issues. A local investigation of allegations does not mean admission of war crimes!

There is no point at that time of screaming that Israel is not being prosecuted for far more serious crimes of genocide and apartheid in Palestine!