By Shakuntala Perera

It’s clear that international moves at work the past week are not isolated. There has been a deliberate and concerted effort on the part of interested parties to tie the government of Sri Lanka down While human rights concerns are indeed crucial in an intensified war situation like that of Sri Lanka, the balance that global humanitarian players need to maintain nevertheless, must be emphasized.

At least three of the global humanitarian giants this week issued subtle, yet strong warnings on the government. Given that the LTTE would not be affected by any of the warnings; which have mentioned the terrorists as well, it’s clear that it will be the government that is the real target of the warnings. The government stands charged of lawlessness and extra judicial killings.

It’s not difficult to take note of the sensitivity of the timing. The European Parliament was on Thursday expected to move a resolution this week on the ban against the LTTE in the backdrop of the killing of the 17 Aid Workers, and the bombing of an LTTE training camp of child soldiers. Members of the European Parliament were expected to take up for debate at the plenary sittings of the Parliament cases of breaches of human rights, democracy, and rule of Law in Sri Lanka.Six different groups in the European Parliament have sent in draft resolution for discussion with request for inclusion in the agenda, pursuant to Rule 115 of the Rules of the Parliamentary Procedure. Rule 115 debates on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Quorum would not necessarily apply to the vote that was to be taken immediately after the debate.

Thus, hours before the EU resolution was to be taken up the agencies were at work with its concerns. Every major global humanitarian organization from the ICRC to the UN wanted the two parties to get the records straight. Naturally there was more responsibility placed on the government.

Certainly outgoing Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, Ulf Henriccson’s parting gift last week had had its effect on the global watch dogs.

The SLMM August 30 issued a statement that the security forces ’guilt’ in the killing of 17 aid workers ‘is proven’. Henriccson maintained that the security forces failure to let SLMM enter the area proved such.

‘Noting the facts outlined in the SLMM findings there are very strong indications of the involvement of the security forces in the act despite their denial. Firstly, the SLMM cannot find the reasons for the restrictions of movements into the said areas especially in above-mentioned circumstances acceptable, thereby strongly indicating the government of Sri Lanka’s eagerness to conceal the matter from the SLMM’ they claimed.

No doubt the killing of the aid workers deserves condemnation at the highest levels, but questions remained on the accuracy of the SLMM statement. For one thing the forensic examinations are far from over for anyone to determine the killers, given the timing of the deaths being the most crucial aspect.International actions are really never isolated. They always work purposefully in conjunction with each other. There is more often than not a contribution to a build- up of a situation.

On August 10, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, cited Sri Lanka as a humanitarian ‘disaster’ of immense proportions in line to Lebanon and Darfur. He cited the killing of the 17 aid workers and the denial of aid workers to the war torn areas.

His statement came weeks within those of the UN Secretary General expressing his concern about the human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country. The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Ashton on Tuesday (5) opined that the situation in Sri Lanka has ‘deteriorated significantly’

He was of the opinion that recent events have ‘confirmed’ the dynamics of human rights abuse identified in my report and demonstrate the urgent need for an international human rights monitoring mission.

“International human rights monitoring is not, of course, an invariably effective response even to situations involving widespread human rights abuse, but there are specific factors indicating that such an approach would be extremely valuable in Sri Lanka. One of these is that civilians are not simply "caught in the crossfire" of the conflict: Rather, civilians are intentionally targeted for strategic reasons. Such killings are quintessentially human rights violations demanding a human rights response,” he said. Stressing that the conflict has ‘no military solution’, he added that mere adjustment of the facts on the ground will not fundamentally change either party’s position in future negotiations.

‘The LTTE’s hopes for autonomy or independence rest on persuading the domestic and international communities that this would be the best solution in human rights terms.He noted however that the ‘strategic importance’ of achieving and maintaining international legitimacy grounded in respect for human rights is not ‘completely lost’ on either the Government or the LTTE. Indeed, the discourse of human rights is central to the parties ‘own understandings of the conflict’s origins and conduct.

“However, by using proxies, the subversion of accountability mechanisms, and disinformation, both parties have been able to commit deniable human rights abuses,” he said.

He was of the opinion that effective monitoring would foreclose the possibility of employing a strategy of deniability, ‘pressuring’ the Government and the LTTE to seek legitimacy through ‘actual’ rather than simulated respect for human rights.

ICRC on Wednesday expressed ‘deep concern’ about the situation in northern and eastern Sri Lanka in humanitarian terms. The ICRC delegate-general for Asia and the Pacific, Reto Meister followed a visit to the war torn Jaffna peninsula and the Vanni region with the statement that Jaffna was "choking."

Expressing concern for the areas which have remained largely cut off from the rest of the country for more than three weeks he asked that the LTTE and government to improve access to the peninsula.

He noted that with fighting continuing in several areas in the north and east, rendering the task of aid agencies especially complicated and dangerous. However, the limited amount of supplies reaching the peninsula has led to price increases that have hit the poorest sections of the population especially hard.

“The flow of goods and people across the lines separating government-controlled from LTTE-held territory has come to a virtual standstill in the north owing to restrictions imposed by both sides,” he added.

The concern of international bodies on the civilians is commendable. But is there a purpose other than that meets the eye that is the real cause for concern or not? One can’t ignore the continued attempts by international organizations to give legitimacy to the LTTE and place them on par with the government. UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions while criticizing the LTTE for its killings lost no time in placing similar blame on the government.

“The LTTE has a record of using killings to deter civilians from exercising freedoms of expression, movement, association, and participation in public affairs. As it stands, no outside observer could wish to rule by the LTTE on the entire Tamil community, much less on the Sinhalese and the Muslims of the North and East, “he said.

In the same breath he rapped the government for ‘interpreting’ the widespread proscription of the LTTE as a terrorist organization as an ’endorsement of its own record’. “Indeed, it is an enduring scandal that convictions of government officials for killing Tamils are virtually non-existent, and many Tamils doubt that the rule of law will protect their lives.”

There is no mention of the decision by the Tamil populations in their hundreds of thousands to live in the South with the Sinhalese community. There is absolutely no mention of the Kebethigollawa massacre either. A more pertinent question would be the failure by all these organisations to seek justice for the 100 Muslims gunned down by the LTTE last month.

None other than the International Committee of the Red Cross is strongly believed to have ‘given up’ further investigations into the innocent civilians killed while attempting to flee the LTTE controlled areas. Suspected of passing on information to the Army of LTTE activities, the men are believed to have been gunned down at point blank range by the LTTE.

There were also reports of the men being suspected of having links with the Muslim Jihad, leading to their massacre.Reports disclose that the ICRC has given up further investigations on grounds that a considerable time has passed since the massacre. The LTTE disallowed investigators to check the bodies beyond one hour. The investigators found two decomposed bodies, 100 national identity cards and other identification and legal documents in the area.

However neither the SLMM, the ICRC nor the United Nations organization, has made any attempt to investigate into the cruel murder of the 100 Muslim men. There have been strangely no international condemnation of the killing and absolutely no real concern to find out the truth about this massacre. The government is at equal fault for its own failure to conduct an investigation or obtain international support for same.

Indeed greater responsibility must lie with the government to address human rights violations when and if they happen. Its failure to look in to shortcomings in the security forces when they occur, must be cause for concern. The incident at Kayts island should have received greater concern than it did. If the government had carried out an independent investigation and brought the offenders to book, its own record could have been more convincing than it is today. But, one can still not justify the attempts to argue that the levels of violation are equal. [via... Daily Mirror]