The international community must “press the government” in Colombo to ensure action is taken on justice for abuses, said Human Rights Watch (HRW), stating that stalling reforms had been further threatened by political instability on the island.
“The many victims of Sri Lanka’s three-decade long civil war have seen their diminishing hopes for justice further delayed by presidential politics,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, commenting on the turmoil that Colombo was plunged into with the appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister in October.
“The administration of Rajapaksa was implicated in egregious violations during the final months of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war in 2009, and in suppression of freedoms of the media, expression, and association” said HRW, releasing its World Report 2019 earlier today.
Though Rajapaksa was eventually forced to stand down, the “tragedy highlights the failure of the Sirisena government to take swift, meaningful steps toward accountability,” added Ganguly.
HRW further noted that though the Sri Lankan government had committed to a United Nations resolution that promoted four transitional justice mechanisms for truth and accountability, “of these four, only the Office of Missing Persons has been formed, but it has yet to become fully functional”.
“Families in the north and east have held protests and vigils to demand the return of their land from military occupation and to seek the truth about disappeared family members,” it said. “The political turmoil over the country’s leadership and the possible return of a Rajapaksa administration raised fears not only of further delays in justice, but of retribution against those pressing for government action.”
“Sri Lanka’s past pledges to provide justice to conflict victims and to initiate reforms have fallen by the wayside amid political turmoil,” Ganguly added. “Sri Lanka’s friends need to press the government to meet its commitments to people who have suffered for so long.”
See more from HRW here.
See the World Report 2019 chapter on Sri Lanka here.
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