The United States is pushing for a resolution to criticise Sri Lanka at the next session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva. If it wins support for the move it would constitiute the most serious international pressure on Colombo so far to address claims it committed war crimes at the end of the country’s civil war in 2009.
By Richard Walker
Nonetheless, there is a long way to go before a full investigation or Tribunal of the kind demanded by rights groups. “We are roughly at step 2 or 3 in a ten step process towards an independant investigation … The international community is not satisfied with what’s happened after the war and this is a way of keeping up the pressure on Colombo,” Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka analyst at the International Crisis Group, told RNW.
A preliminary investigation by a UN team conducted in 2010, as well as a gruesome documentary by British TV’s Channel 4 in 2011, claimed Sri Lankan forces had deliberately shelled hospitals and carried out executions and rapes of Tamil prisoners. Colombo describes the claims as ‘fabrications’.
American diplomacy
The American delegation to the HRC in Geneva was cautious when describing its ambitions. "We are exploring with our partners options for the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council that would encourage Sri Lanka to work toward real and lasting reconciliation," David Kennedy from the US mission told RNW.
This diplomatic approach is, for some observers, moving too slowly. “There’s the argument that since Sri Lanka is a lot more stable than it used to be governments have wanted to let sleeping dogs lie - the fear being that if you push too hard on what happened at the end of the war you risk further inflaming passions in Sri Lanka… There may a kernel of truth in this fear but it’s not a strong enough argument to allow impunity… There have been just a handful of prosecutions over the past 30 years in Sri Lanka for literally tens of thousands of murders and other horrible crimes,” said Alan Keenan at the ICG.
Anything learned?
The investigation, carried out by the government’s own Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), published in December, has been met with widespread international criticism. “The report was really, really bad,” says Fred Carver from the London-based pressure group Sri Lanka Campaign. “It lacked any accountability. Subsequently, the government failed to take any action.“
For rights groups, American involvement would amount to a welcome broadening of the pressure on Colombo. “[The Americans] have never been very critical of Sri Lanka, so this is new. So far there’s been a general feeling throughout the Western world that they give Sri Lanka the benefit of the doubt. This really would be a welcome change of opinion.”
Sri Lanka's location on an ancient and lucrative trade route in the Indian Ocean makes it of strategic commercial and military interest to Washington, New Delhi and Beijing.
Some analysts theorize this makes it a prime part of China's so-called "String of Pearls" strategy to surround India and project its presence by setting up coaling stations under commercial auspices at port after port in the Indian Ocean. They say Colombo has been able to resist western pressure to meaningfully investigate the claims of war crimes in 2009 thanks to China's support.
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persistance in digging up dirt in other countries has become americas favorite pat time; over looking the heaps left allover the world by them.this will only antagonize the few countries which was at least hospitable to americans and their products needing desperate sales abroad.I cant think of a better way of handing the world to chinese by default!
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