Tamil parties and groups in Sri Lanka and internationally have “welcomed” the September 16 report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) on war crimes committed during the island nation’s 26-year civil war.
Those backing the report include the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) and the UK-based Global Tamil Forum (GTF). These parties believe that the report can be used to reach a new political deal with the Colombo government and thus facilitate devolution of more powers to the Tamil-majority Northern Province.
The OISL investigation was initiated after a US-sponsored resolution was passed in the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014. Washington backed the Rajapaksa government’s war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was not concerned about the democratic rights of the Tamil people. The resolution was aimed at forcing Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to end his government’s close ties with Beijing as part of the Obama administration’s war preparations against China. The TNA and other Tamil parties supported the UN resolution.
In August, however, the US shifted its previous call for an international war crimes investigation and endorsed Colombo’s request for a domestic inquiry. The decision came in the wake of Rajapaksa’s ouster in the January presidential election, and his failed bid to become prime minister in parliamentary elections. The US shift was a vote of confidence in the new president, Maithripala Sirisena, and United National Party (UNP) Prime Minister Wickremesinghe.
The OISL report provides a detailed account of war crimes and human rights violations by successive Sri Lankan governments, particularly focusing on atrocities during the final months of the war in 2009 under the Rajapaksa administration. Though specific figures have not been provided, the report estimates that tens of thousands of people were killed during these months.
The TNA welcomed OISL report’s call for “hybrid special courts integrating international judges, lawyers, prosecutors and investigators” and the “entire gamut” of the OISL recommendations. It urged the Sri Lankan government to “accept the report and cooperate fully with the TNA and the international community in dealing with the past.”
TNA leader R. Sambandan said that the UN report provided the prospects for “a permanent solution to the long-lasting national question in Sri Lanka.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry, however, made clear to the TNA during his visit to Sri Lanka in May that it had to work with Colombo in order to achieve a power-sharing deal.
Significantly, the TNA issued a statement declaring that it would “undertake to carry out our responsibility to lead the Tamil people in reflecting on the past,” including “introspection into our own community’s failures and the unspeakable crimes committed in our name.”
This is a criticism of LTTE’s atrocities during the war and for which the TNA was also responsible.
On its part the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government has moved to accommodate the TNA. Sirisena has snubbed the faction of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party which attempted to claim the post of parliamentary opposition leader, thus paving the way for Sambandan to assume the position. The TNA backed the US regime-change operation that brought Sirisena to power and voiced their support for the UNP-led government.
There are some tactical differences, however, within the TNA. Suresh Premachandran, leader of TNA partner, the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), told the media that there had to be an international investigation into war crimes. He called for others inside the TNA with the same position to speak up.
A statement from the Global Tamil Forum said it was “in full agreement with the report” and stated a “purely domestic court procedure will have no chance of overcoming widespread and justifiable suspicions fuelled by decades of violations.” It praised the so-called “hybrid courts.”
The TNPF, which postures as a hard-line Tamil nationalist group, launched a petition campaign early this month to demand an international inquiry into war crimes. According to the TNPF, it has obtained about 150,000 signatures and sent it to the UN.
However, at a press conference on September 20, TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam praised the report but said the proposed “hybrid mechanism” was ambiguous and called for an international investigation.
—By Subash Somachandran and S. Jayanth