| Civil Monitoring Commission Post Box 803, Colombo #72 Bankshall Street, Colombo 11 Tel:+9411 2473511 Fax: +9411 2435961 ganesan@eureka.lk usp@sltnet.lk |
Free Media Movement 237/ 22, Wijeya Kumaratunga Road Colombo 5 Tel: +94 74 519 567 Fax: +94 1 821236 http://www.freemediasrilanka.org/index. php Email: info@freemediasrilanka.org |
Law & Society Trust 3, Kynsey Terrace Colombo 8 Tel: +94 11 269 1228 Fax: +94 11 2686843 http://www.lawandsocietytrust.org/ Email: lst@eureka.lk |
FOR PUBLIC RELEASE 23 August 2007
First in a series of submissions to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry and public on human rights violations in Sri Lanka
The Law & Society Trust, in collaboration with four local partners including the Civil Monitoring Commission and the Free Media Movement, has compiled a working document listing 547 persons killed and 396 persons disappeared during the period January to June 2007. The complete confidential document, with names, locations of incidents and all available data, has been submitted to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (“the Commission”) as well as relevant members of Government.
This public letter is the first in a series on the island-wide situation in relation to killings, missing persons and other human rights violations. It will be updated hereafter on a regular basis. Please note that this is not, nor is it intended to be, an exhaustive list.
Though the Commission has been asked to look specifically at 16 cases, plus the assassination of TNA MP N Raviraj, we note that the wording of the Commission’s mandate – “to obtain information, investigate and inquire into alleged serious human rights violations arising since 1st August 2005” – provides an omnibus clause which permits consideration of cases outside of those specified in the mandate.
We have submitted this information to the Commission so that it may examine the attached documents and investigate these incidents. This is of vital importance in the absence of an acknowledgement of these killings and disappearances by the government and other statutory bodies with a mandate for human rights protection in the country.
The attached analysis is based on the information obtained from local partners, some of whom did not wish to be named to ensure that they remain free to document violations. Wherever possible, this information has been cross-checked and verified to ensure that there is no multiple reporting of the same incident.
Killings
The largest proportion of people killed in the first six months of 2007 were Tamil – 70.7% across the island, as compared with 9.1% Sinhalese and 5.9% Muslims. The gravity of this situation becomes even more pronounced when considered against the fact that the Tamil people make up only 16% of the total population. Men were killed in much larger numbers than women – 89.9% vs. 9.7%.
By district, Jaffna was worst affected by killings (23.2%), followed by Batticaloa and Vavuniya (21.5% and 21.3 respectively).
The data on humanitarian workers and religious leaders killed reflects the overall trends in killings, with Tamils disproportionately affected as compared with Muslim and Sinhalese. Killings of this category of persons were highest in Trincomalee, during the period 1 January 2006 to 21 August 2007. However, it is notable that religious leaders of three of the four main faiths of the island have been killed since last year – Father Jim Brown (August 2006), Selliah Parameshwaran Kurukkal (February 2007) and Ven Handungamuwe Nandarathna Thero (March 2007).
Disappearances
As with killings, Tamils suffered disproportionately from abductions – 64.6%, compared with 3% Sinhalese and 3% Muslims. Men represented nearly 98% of all missing persons.
By district, Jaffna was again worst affected by disappearances (49.5%). However Colombo was next worst affected, at 17.7%, underlining the concern expressed by many local NGOs at the situation with respect to this particular violation.
Nearly 19% of persons abducted were taken from their homes. The vast majority of these were in Jaffna, however there were a few abductions from home in other parts of the country. Where times were specified, these were for persons who disappeared in Jaffna, which has been under curfew since before January 2007. Roughly 5% of all persons abducted were persons abducted from home during curfew in Jaffna – in an area allegedly under government control, this points to the possibility of government inability or unwillingness to keep all its citizens safe.
It is our hope that the investigations by the Commission, with assistance of the IIGEP, lead to identification of perpetrators and prosecution, thereby ensuring justice to victims and their family members, as well as directly addressing the prevailing culture of impunity.
Also attached to this letter is a compilation of published material, where detailed information is not available, from reliable and credible sources such as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and UNICEF for the period January to June 2007 on killings and missing persons as well as recruitment of child soldiers. Killings and abductions of aid workers, religious leaders and media personnel – the latter drawn from the Free Media Movement – are also covered.
As stated above, this is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, we hope that by bringing together information from a range of reliable sources on killings, missing persons, and other rights violations, this document may give readers some sense of the enormity and shape of the current human rights crisis in Sri Lanka.
Though we call on the Commission to use their mandate to investigate these violations, fully utilizing the available expertise and assistance of the IIGEP, in the long term we believe it is not ad hoc bodies such as the Commission that should address these violations, but statutory domestic human rights protection mechanisms, cooperating with and assisted by the international community, particularly the United Nations.
In the absence of adequate and visible steps taken so far by domestic bodies to address the violations, there are clear indications that this trend will continue in the coming months.
Please contact Mr Ruki Fernando (+94 773874160 or rukiii@gmail.com) or Ms Dulani Kulasinghe (+94 775796507 or dulani_kulasinghe@yahoo.com) with questions about the information contained in this letter or the attachments.
UNDERAGE RECRUITMENT / CHILD SOLDIERS
In a public document on its website, in reference to its monitoring and reporting, UNICEF states: “UNICEF continuously checks its database on under age recruitment to ensure its accuracy. UNICEF only withdraws recruits from its database when it is able to verify their release through an official letter of release, or by establishing that the child is reunited with his or her parents. UNICEF estimates that its database only reflects a third of the actual number of children recruited.”
KILLINGS
Based on partial, confidential information already passed to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, a number of reliable sources estimate the number of killings from January to June 2007 at about 547 persons. This number does not include unidentified civilian casualties or deaths of combatants, though the information we received did include this data. Our figure for these killings is 447 persons. This brings our total for killings
in this period up to 994 persons.
Though there are numerous public sources on killings in Sri Lanka, it has not been possible, until now, to see the most credible sources’ informationin a single place. This is compiled below to give a general idea of the impact of the conflict.
* Details of the month of May are for the first two weeks only, as accounts of casualty figures for the final two weeks vary greatly between the Government and the LTTE.
** Details of the month of June are also not certain as one group, in a clash in the third week of June, claims that 30 persons were killed, while the other states that 10 were killed.
MISSING
Based on detailed confidential information already passed to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, reliable sources put the number of disappearances from January to June 2007 at about 396 persons. To the best of our knowledge, this information focused on missing civilians.
