Another lost opportunity in Geneva

The new administration of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake lost yet another opportunity in the international stage to rectify past wrongs and charter a new course. This time at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), keeping with the policies of the Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe administrations, the Government rejected international efforts to deliver justice for the tens of thousands of victims of State atrocities. 

After years of failure to deliver a credible internal mechanism for accountability, in 2021, the HRC established a mechanism within the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “to collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence and to develop possible strategies for future accountability processes for gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka”.

This evidence-gathering mechanism has now been operational for the last four years. In his report to the Council last month the High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that this repository “comprises 96,215 items and contains over 470 different sources, including information provided by more than 220 witnesses and 250 organisations, including international and multilateral organisations.” Whether the Sri Lankan Government likes it or not or whether it accepts or rejects this mechanism, international efforts towards accountability are moving ahead. The only question now is what is next? If there is no change in policy by the Sri Lankan State, evidence gathering will move to the next stage; criminal prosecutions in foreign jurisdictions.  

Rather than blindly following the failed policies of recent administrations, this Government could have been better served if it took a leaf from the policies of former foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera who in 2015 reversed the trajectory towards international jurisdiction. The decision to co-sponsor a resolution in 2015 allowed Sri Lanka to take ownership and leadership in an international effort in Geneva and beyond to achieve reconciliation and justice for human rights violations. This marked a shift in how the Human Rights Council engaged with our country. Sri Lanka had lost vote after vote at the HRC from 2012-2014 (and since 2021), and the situation was hurtling towards a Special Commission of Inquiry on war crimes. Samaraweera’s diplomatic efforts pulled the situation back from the brink, with firm commitments to address rights violations and deal with Sri Lanka’s difficult past through our own domestic mechanisms. He presented a roadmap that promised four domestic institutions that were envisioned to deliver a comprehensive transitional justice process.

Two of these mechanisms, i.e. the Office on Mission Persons and the Office for Reparations have now been established and the third institution, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been principally accepted by the previous cabinet. Therefore, irrespective of the vilification of Samaraweera and the 2015 resolution, successive Governments have accepted a majority of these commitments with only an independent prosecutor’s office yet outstanding. 

If the Government is to reverse international action, it needs to meaningfully demonstrate its commitment to accountability for past crimes and the ability to prosecute perpetrators within Sri Lanka’s judicial system. Investigations into a few emblematic cases or hiding behind technicalities of constitutionality would not suffice. The Sri Lankan judiciary has failed to deliver justice for crimes committed by the State and it would take much convincing that this administration has the will and capacity to do so in accordance with Sri Lanka’s international obligations adhering to international standards.

It is ironic and quite sad that many of the victims of State persecution are from the 1987-89 period when tens of thousands of citizens were extrajudicially executed, disappeared and tortured by the State. The primary victim of these crimes was the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the main constituent party of the current administration. President Dissanayake himself explained recently how his own brother was executed in 1989. One would have expected such an administration, with so much personal loss and pain, to side with the victims rather than parrot out the same rhetoric that had failed victims for so many years.