Despite the election of a new government which has pledged reforms in Sri Lanka "a disturbing dark reality remains: the absence of justice for the massacre of thousands of Tamil civilians in "No Fire Zones" at the civil war's end in 2009" said Callum Macrae, the director of the documentary, 'No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka'.

Writing in the journal, Foreign Policy, Mr Macrae said: "on the need for truth, justice, and an end to impunity and bold political solutions to the long-standing injustices suffered by the Tamils, the new government has shown precious little genuine progress."

See here for full opinion.

Extract published below:

"Unless the new Sirisena government can prove it is now capable of mounting a credible domestic investigation and prosecution, nothing has changed. And in September the Human Rights Council should move straight to the process of establishing an internationally-mediated process to prosecute the accused.

That is what should happen. It doesn’t mean it will.

Colombo will certainly bluff and bluster, as ever, about its vague intentions of acting. In September it might even propose a resolution that could, in effect, say: “Thank you for that inquiry report. We are shocked too. Now hand it to us and we will deal with it.” Then it would likely follow the time-honored Sri Lankan practice of setting up a Commission that will do nothing.

How can the future avoid this travesty of justice? Members of the Council must be clear that the Sri Lankan government only has six months to demonstrate that in practice circumstances have genuinely changed since the Rajapaksa regime – and that means bold and urgent steps.

At the very least, the government should sign up to the Rome Statute, and thus the International Criminal Court (ICC). This poses no threat to the state’s sovereignty. Like the UN itself, the ICC only intervenes if a state fails to deal with crimes like ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide. If the new government is serious about dealing with these issues, it has nothing to fear from signing up for the ICC. On the other hand, if it the government does not sign up, it leaves itself subject to the suspicion that it has no intention of dealing with these issues, or even worse, ensuring such crimes are not committed in the future.

This does not mean the ICC is necessarily the solution. It does not act retroactively to deal with crimes committed before a state signs up unless either the country itself agrees, or the Security Council passes a resolution to this effect, and that would almost certainly be vetoed by China or Russia.

Other steps demanded of the government should include publication of the lists of prisoners it holds (possibly in the thousands), and information on their release or trial. It should include an invitation to the OISL investigators, and the UN’s special rapporteurs, to come to Sri Lanka and do their work unencumbered. It should include the demilitarization of the North and East, an end to the climate of sexual violence, and significant progress on the return of seized Tamil lands. A guarantee that new laws supposedly protecting witnesses are actually enforced should also be present. It should mean an end to intimidation of people exercising their legal right to demonstrate.

The Sri Lankan penal code should also include the international statutes that forbid crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Sri Lanka cannot expect the world to accept it will seriously investigate these crimes when it does not recognize them in its penal code.

Without these steps, the Human Rights Council should conclude that this government, like the last, is in no position to ensure a credible domestic judicial process that would enjoy the trust and respect of all of Sri Lanka’s communities.

If the ICC is ruled out, either by a Sri Lankan refusal to refer itself voluntarily, or a Russian or Chinese veto, then the Council must create an alternative.

And one option with a chance of acceptability by the majority of countries on the Human Rights Council – in particular those from the Global South who are understandably anxious to avoid what could be perceived as too “western” a mechanism – would appear to be a special court on the lines of the Sierra Leone Court. As a “hybrid” court, its location would be Sri Lanka with domestic input, but it would be an international court in every other sense.

The UN would appoint two-thirds of the judges and prosecutors, and the Sri Lankan government would appoint one-third. Anything less than a two-thirds international weight would be unacceptable and create mistrust among the Tamil community. Also essential would be the appointment of international judges and prosecutors by the UN, but not by elements chosen or favored by the Sri Lankan government. Sri Lanka has a record of incorporating an allegedly “international” element into its so-called inquiries to give them credibility, only to have that ploy subsequently discredited. Given its failure to stop the massacres in the first place, the world owes it to Sri Lanka to not fail its people again.