[A United Nations panel estimated that up to 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians may have died in military operations that ended the civil war, and investigators subsequently detailed horrific accounts of extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearances.]
By Nick Cumming
GENEVA — President Maithripala Sirisena swept to a surprising
election victory about two years ago promising political changes and human
rights protections in Sri Lanka.
On Wednesday, a United Nations committee questioned the
government’s commitment to fulfilling those promises, pointing to the continued
use of torture by the police and a failure to rapidly investigate and prosecute
atrocities committed by security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels at the end of
the country’s 26-year civil war in 2009.
In delivering its conclusions from hearings conducted over two
days in Geneva at the end of November, the United Nations body, the Committee
Against Torture, said it was deeply concerned by evidence that torture was “a
common practice” routinely inflicted by the police Criminal Investigation
Department “in a large majority of cases,” regardless of the suspected offense.
The committee also expressed concern at the government’s
apparent reluctance to address broader problems.
“What we saw was that the government has not embarked on
institutional reform of the security sector,” Felice D. Gaer, one of two
committee experts who led the examination of Sri Lanka, told reporters in
Geneva.
“There’s some question about their commitment to a lot of things
that are needed and have been promised in that country in this very difficult
time,” she added.
The committee’s findings reinforce deepening concern among human
rights activists that Mr. Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are
backpedaling on the promised institutional cleanup for fear of antagonizing the
country’s powerful security services.
A United Nations panel estimated that up to 40,000 ethnic Tamil
civilians may have died in military operations that ended the civil war, and
investigators subsequently detailed horrific accounts of extrajudicial
killings, torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearances.
After his upset victory over President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mr.
Sirisena said he would set up a truth, justice and reconciliation commission;
create an office to investigate the fate of tens of thousands of missing
persons; prohibit torture and create a judicial mechanism to ensure
accountability for past atrocities.
But Mr. Sirisena said last month he had written to
President-elect Donald J. Trump asking for help to free Sri Lanka from those
obligations and planned to make the same request to the next secretary general
of the United Nations, António Guterres of Portugal.
“If it’s true, it completes the reversion which was already
underway,” Alan Keenan, a Sri Lanka specialist for the International Crisis
Group, said of Mr. Sirisena’s claim to have contacted Mr. Trump. “There was
always a doubt about the commitment of the president and prime minister. As
time goes on, those doubts have grown.”
The Committee Against Torture acknowledged measures taken by Mr.
Sirisena to counter past atrocities by, for example, setting up an Office of
Missing Persons and adopting a national plan to promote human rights. But the
committee said the government had made no progress on longstanding
investigations into extrajudicial killings and expressed concern at its failure
to set up promised mechanisms to prosecute crimes.
A wide range of continuing abuses were also noted by the
committee, which cited a revival of so-called white van abductions, named after
the vehicles used in the kidnappings of suspects who disappeared into
unregistered places of detention. In addition, the committee criticized the
continued use of administrative detention under draconian antiterrorism
legislation and the lack of credible witness protection.
Those concerns were underscored, Ms. Gaer said, by the alarming
presence of Sri Lanka’s national intelligence chief, Sisira Mendis, in the
delegation sent to meet the committee. Mr. Mendis had served as deputy
inspector general of the Criminal Investigations Department for a period of 15
months up to June 2009.
“He was the person with command responsibility over the most
notorious center for abuse in the country just at the end of the civil war, at
a time when so many of the horrendous things happened,” Ms. Gaer said.
The committee had asked him many questions, Ms. Gaer added, but
“Mr. Mendis did not say a word the whole time he was there.”
