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The conflict on the island of Sri Lanka continues today, stated Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group and Callum Macrae, director of “No Fire Zone”, at a screening of the documentary in King’s College London earlier this week.
Hosted by the War Crimes Research Group at King’s College London, director Callum Macrae introduced the documentary, stressing the need for immediate action on the issue. He stated,
“This is not just an academic exercise on accountability - this is a live issue... The international community catastrophically failed, now they must do something at least to create justice.”
“A precondition for reconciliation is justice... The 9, 10 and 11 year old survivors, in 10 years time, if the international community fails to deliver justice, will get justice by their own hands.”His comments were echoed by Alan Keenan, a senior analyst on Sri Lanka at the International Crisis Group, who noted,
“What we see in Syria today perhaps wouldn't be happening quite as it did we had a clear commitment in Sri Lanka”.Keenan went on to add that, Sri Lankan domestic enquiries producing prosecutions were “few and far between” stating there were “literally only a handful of cases and certainly no senior levels of prosecution”.
“We don't have a body that will establish with any ease an international independent investigation... The UNHRC has no teeth. If it can't establish an investigation, then calling on a government that is quite possibly guilty itself, is not going to happen”, added Keenan.
Responding to a question in the audience on other measures that could be taken by member states, Keenan referred to a Feb 2013 ICG report (see here), which called on states to consider travel restrictions on members of the Sri Lankan government. Noting that both Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Minister for Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa were reportedly US citizens, Keenan went on to add that governments could use their own legal systems to prosecute members of the Sri Lankan government.
He went on to add,
“Governments have their own responsibility under international law to pursue war criminals... A lot of tools are available to governments around the world”.Discussing the final stages of the armed conflict, Macrae noted,
“While these massacres were going on Tamils were screaming... Outside of the Houses of Parliament Tamils were camped out every day and nobody listened.... (What happened was) the catastrophic results of failure to listen to Tamils.”Keenan also stated that,
“There is a fundamental problem which is that the Tamils were not listened to and they are the voice that need to be listened to the most.”
“We have a pretty clear picture of what happened by both sides, principally by the government of Sri Lanka”.He went on to recount his experience in the European Parliament when British Conservative MEP Nij Deva pressed that the Sri Lankan army was engaged in a “hostage rescue mission” - labelled an “absurd propagandistic claim”.
Both speakers also reflected on the current situation on the island, with Macrae stating,
“The governmet is destroying everything that is Tamil. Land grabs are taking place on a massive scale, sexual violence on a huge scale... Especially with the use of rape as a weapon of oppression - it's so culturally destructive.”Macrae recounted the comments of an army commander in Jaffna, who proclaimed that Tamils were no longer “pure Tamils” because Sinhalese blood was in them and that a massive Rs. 700 million had been paid out by the government to military families having their third child.
“This process is going on in every minute... With every month that passes the possibility of a political solution gets less and less. The war is not over”, added Macrae.Stating that the difference between attacks on Tamils and attacks on Sinhalese was “profound” Macrae also said,
“In the North-East it is an attack on the people. It is a conscious and deliberate decision... (it is a) drive to destroy Tamil make up of North, a profound and thought out process.”Keenan agreed that there was “an ongoing assault on Tamil character of North-East” but added the “central issue of conflict between two communities does not explain it all”.
Stating that “militarisation is beginning to worry the Sinhalese too”, Keenan went on to say,
“One has to be careful to recognise ethnicity... But simultaneous see other rights being violated... The Tamils suffer because they are Tamil but also suffer because they want rights”.Speaking on whether the term genocide was applicable to the situation on the island, Macrae stated that he had not taken a position on the term. But he said that a key test of genoide is whether there is intent. He added
“It does seem Sri Lanka is determined by what they're doing now (to the Tamils in the North-East) that there was intent all along.”See our live tweets from the event on our Twitter account here.