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In recent weeks, the government claimed to have come out on top in U.N. meetings on human rights in New York and Geneva, where its team of diplomats strongly denied any serious human rights crisis in the country. Their two-fold strategy was to personally attack members of human rights organizations as ill-motivated persons, and to argue that human rights violations in times of the war against terrorism in countries such as Sudan and Iraq were incomparably greater than in Sri Lanka.
However, Arbour's visit to Jaffna, her encounter with the families of the disappeared, and meetings with a range of civil society groups seems to have convinced her that the situation in the country was bleak enough to warrant a more active international role. It is hardly a cause for surprise that Arbour ended her five-day visit to Sri Lanka by making a strong call for an U.N. monitoring presence.
However, Arbour also admitted that her office could only assist Sri Lanka if the government made a request. This could leave the victims, and victims to be, with no remedy. Tragically, it appears that at this time the government, which scents victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the military battlefield, could not care less. So far, the government's position has been to reject any U.N. field monitoring presence in the country.
Instead, the country's minister for human rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, took the position that the government was prepared to accept technical assistance that would strengthen the government's own mechanisms for protecting human rights. The problem, however, is not the lack of capacity of the government's institutions but their lack of credibility.
The government's further contention that it will not accept a U.N. office for human rights in the country, which it calls an infringement on the country's sovereignty, can be contested. The government has accepted a host of other U.N. offices in the country, including the United Nations Development Program, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF. They have all played a positive role in providing solace and assistance to war-affected people, as well as assisting in the country's overall human development programs. The same logic that applies to the presence of those U.N. organizations needs to prevail with regard to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
An example of a fellow South Asian country that is equally conscious of sovereignty issues, but which adopted a more accommodating attitude toward U.N. involvement in human rights monitoring due to its own circumstances, is Nepal. The United Nations is playing a major role in supervising the current ceasefire between the government and rebel Maoists. The National Human Rights Commission of Nepal, which is a government agency, is currently working in partnership with the U.N. human rights monitoring system. However, for the present, the scenario in Sri Lanka is very different.
There is great resistance on the part of the government to any involvement of the United Nations. Civil society groups are at the other end of the spectrum, calling for an international monitoring presence. In the aftermath of Arbour's visit, four prominent civic activists including U.N. and Human Rights Watch award winner Sunila Abeysekera resigned from an advisory committee of the Ministry of Human Rights to protest the government's lack of seriousness in taking their advice or in protecting human rights and eliminating the culture of impunity.
On the other hand, the United Nations itself has said that it would not force its presence on Sri Lanka and would only come in with the assent of the government. The present Sri Lankan government has shown itself to be insensitive to international opinion, and worse still, to the human rights of its citizens. So until the government changes its mind, justice must be sought within the internal framework of the country.
It is unacceptable when a government sees its people as statistics and argues that its own situation is not as bad as elsewhere based on mere numbers. When the seriousness of abuses are denied on the ground of relative scale, it becomes necessary to look to institutions that look at human rights abuses as they should be, in absolute terms. This would be the justice system. The Supreme Court, which stopped the eviction of Tamil citizens from Colombo by the government in the recent past, has the potential to hold the light in these times of darkness. In the face of the order of the Supreme Court, the government immediately backed down and apologized to the victims.
The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka stands as the last glimmer of hope in these bleak times. National institutions separate from the executive need to step forth to end the impunity. The Supreme Court has stepped in where its mandate has been sought. Now perhaps it needs to look at the broader picture, as in the famous public interest law cases of India, where, on its own volition, the Indian Supreme Court commissioned research on human rights abuses and thereafter ordered action.
In one of the Sunday newspapers, there was a photograph of a little girl with tears streaming down her face calling for the release of her father, along with other families of the disappeared. Every day, more fall victim to the assassins and abductors who have claimed at least 1,000 victims so far, and perhaps far more. The light of justice must shine forth to scrutinize the impunities that take place in the capital city and the far corners of the country.
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(Dr. Jehan Perera is executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, an independent advocacy organization. He studied economics at Harvard College and holds a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School. ©Copyright Jehan Perera.)
