No real progress in Sri Lanka’s aid worker massacre, rights watchdog charges
Saturday, 3 August 2013 00:27
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The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Sri Lankan Government of not making a real progress in meting out justice in the case of the execution style slaying of 17 aid workers seven years ago despite renewed international calls for action.
During the height of the battle to wrest control of Eastern Province from the Tamil Tiger terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), unidentified gunmen on 4 August, 2006 executed the 17 local aid workers of the Paris-based international humanitarian agency Action Against Hunger in their complex in Muttur of Trincomalee district .
In a statement issued Wednesday, the New York-based human rights watch dog said the Sri Lankan Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, due to increasing international pressure, last month directed the state lawyers and investigators to review the case and prepare a comprehensive list of witnesses but no real progress has been made yet in bringing the culprits to justice.
The HR organisation says the Government response was one of several recent moves by the Government to adopt previously disregarded recommendations of its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in 2011, created following the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.
“The Rajapaksa Government is good at throwing bones to the international community, but not at taking serious measures to find and punish those responsible for serious abuses,” said James Ross, Legal and Policy Director at Human Rights Watch.
“If the families of 17 aid workers can’t get justice for their loss, it’s hard to be hopeful for anyone else,” Ross said in the statement.
The HRW called on the countries participating at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo in November to publicly express concern about the government’s minimal response to these and other serious abuses.
“Governments seeking justice for the victims of atrocities during Sri Lanka’s long armed conflict should publicly demand an international inquiry,” Ross said.
He said given Sri Lanka’s history of inaction on even prominent cases with strong evidence demonstrates the need for concerted international action.
