Amnesty International India
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I got a unique opportunity to interview Yolanda who is a researcher & working on the Sri lankan Human Rights issues connected with Amnesty International. Here are the points of conversation -
Q. Please give a brief detail about your campaign there in Sri Lanka.
A. Our current campaign is “Sri Lanka: Demanding justice for Survivors one year after the end of the conflict’. Despite massive violations of international human rights and humanitarian law committed by both sides during the war, impunity remains the norm. Survivors and family members of those killed have no hope of justice, truth and reparations at the national level. International pressure on Sri Lanka has been disturbingly weak. In particular, governments and the UN have taken inadequate steps to intervene and ensure accountability.
Amnesty is demanding that the UN establish an independent international investigation, as a first step towards applying international justice to ensure accountability for the grave violations committed in Sri Lanka.
Q. What are the threats that people like you face from the Sri Lankan government’s propaganda machine?
A. As a human rights activist based in Europe I don’t face the same threats as human rights defenders inside Sri Lanka. I have been subject to smear campaigns for the kinds of issues I raise on Sri Lanka but this doesn’t compare to the feelings of insecurity and fear that activists inside the country face. What has been quite difficult is dealing with lack of access to the country. Amnesty has not been allowed to visit the country for the last two years and that makes our analysis and support work for human rights on the ground more challenging. The government must have something serious to hide if it is not transparent and refuses access to human rights organisations like Amnesty International.
I really feel for my human rights colleagues on the ground inside Sri Lanka. It’s frightening how the space for critical voices has closed inside Sri Lanka over the last few years. After the Ceasefire Agreement collapsed and Sri Lanka returned to conventional war, human rights violations surged. There was an increase in arbitrary and politically motivated detention of those who spoke out against the war or who simply expressed an opinion that didn’t sit neatly with the government’s ‘No Holds Barred, all out war agenda”. Journalists have been killed for their views and human rights activists have also received death threats. The authorities use of sweeping emergency regulations has had a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
Q. What in your view making United Nations helpless in taking strong steps to stop the brutality and in justice prevailing in Sri Lanka?
A. One challenge was the way that humanitarian space was restricted during the war. The government played hardball with international agencies deliberately restricting humanitarian space.
Personally, I think the UN should have been stronger role in defending the critical role of protection. In September 2008 the government asked INGOs to leave the Vanni (the combat zone) and by complying without bringing in high level advocacy the UN left the civilians left in the fighting zone more at risk.
The Un does not seem to have woken up to the threat the ‘Sri Lanka option’ means to the laws of war. It seems to be pressured by countries like Russia, China and members of the Non aligned movement who want to use the national sovereignty argument to stop the Un from doing a proper investigation.
It’s vital that the UN remembers its promises to protect and in this regard I hope the recent panel set up will be a first step in understanding what needs to be done for victims families.
Q. In your view, why the Sri Lankan government so far has been failed to do anything towards this brutality and has not been able to provide justice and reparations to the families affected?
A. To be honest it’s really a question of political will.
Successive governments in Sri Lanka have been complicit in burying human rights violations.
One example of this is what happens with official Commissions of Inquiry.
Sri Lanka has a long history of establishing commissions of inquiry in response to human rights violations. In 2009, Amnesty International issued a report entitled Twenty-years of make-believe: Sri Lanka’s commissions of inquiry (AI Index: ASA 37/005/2009) which documented the systematic failures of these mechanisms to bring about justice, truth and reparations for victims. None of them have been adequately empowered, resourced or supported politically to ensure real accountability The main effect of the government’s myriad commissions of inquiry, advisory panels and committees mandated to look into human rights violations has been to blunt international criticism. More than anything, the Sri Lankan government, which actively suppresses criticism and opposition, would not allow Commissions to carry out their mandates independently.
So frankly the government is not serious about challenging the climate of impunity.
Q. How are you getting the resources for your work and have you ever came across any such activity of threat?
A. Our biggest challenge is getting accurate and verifiable information.
The government deliberately restricted information sources during the war – sealing off the conflict zone so this was a war without witnesses.
Foreign journalists and researchers (including Amnesty International) have been refused entry into the country and there remains a virtual absence of accurate and unbiased coverage of the final months of Eelam War IV and its aftermath.
We’re looking at a government that wants to shut down dialogue. You can see the impact this is having more broadly leading to a deterioration in democratic rights.
If the government has nothing to hide why doesn’t it let in independent investigators? On 22 June the UNSG set up a panel to support accountability initiatives. The government has refused to co-operate with the panel and has already announced it will refuse visas to the 3 member team. A team that includes prominent professionals from Asia including a former Attorney General from Indonesia.
Q. How the effected families are passing their days in Sri Lanka that too without justice being given to them?
A. I’ve spoken to a number of war survivors in Sri Lanka and their experiences are heartbreaking. One particular conversation stays with me. A senior civil servant described how he lost his wife in the final days of the war. She was killed by a shell attack. He held her while she was dying and had to leave her in the area of fighting without giving her a proper ceremony as shells rained down and he had to flee for safety. He said ‘You can’t give me back my loved ones but please fight for justice’.
Families in Sri Lanka deserve to know what happened. A huge number of civilians were killed in the final months of fighting. Both the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam commited serious violations. Families need to have an international independent investigation so that we can understand the facts of what happened.
Q. What more steps should be taken to improve the situation of human rights in Sri Lanka?
A. Good civil policing, free from military and political influence and duties, and an efficient and independent justice system are critically important.
Many Sri Lankans have lost faith in the criminal justice system.
One particular area of concern from a human rights viewpoint is the detention of Ex-Combatants.
Amnesty International received credible reports in 2009 that the Sri Lankan army engaged in torture and enforced disappearances of suspected LTTE members, including some who were captured and detained in so called “rehabilitation” facilities – mostly re-purposed school buildings or former displacement camps These serious allegations require independent investigation.
Amnesty International is very concerned about the Sri Lankan government’s continued detention of alleged LTTE members in these facilities. More than 10,000 people remain arbitrarily detained without charge, and information about their whereabouts has not been made public. There is no central list of names identifying specific places of detention. Detainees have not been permitted to challenge their detentions in court and the ICRC does not have access to them to ensure their wellbeing.
Although an increasing number of families have managed to gain some access to relatives detained by the authorities for “rehabilitation,” some have not had any contact and Amnesty International has been told that many families have not been informed of prisoner transfers. People attempting to leave displacement camps and return to their villages of origin voiced fears that they would face even greater obstacles maintaining contact with detained relatives.
Q. What do you think has been your biggest achievement so far in this journey & how do you think you are getting benefit out of this work?
A. One very happy moment in the last few months was seeing journalist Tissa released and safe.
Tissa had been sentenced last year to 20 years’ hard labor, after an unfair trial, for criticizing the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war against the Tamil Tigers in a couple magazine articles.
Amnesty International had adopted Tissa as a “ prisoner of conscience ,” since he was being prosecuted solely for his legitimate journalistic activities. While the Sri Lankan government had announced on May 3 that President Rajapaksa had decided to pardon Tissa, as of June 9 the pardon still hadn’t been issued. Nor did we know whether his rights would be fully restored, including the right to leave the country.
His pardon finally came through and he the Committee to Protect Journalists reported, Tissa arrived in Washington, DC on 12 June.
This is part of a worldwide action on Sri Lank – not just by Amnesty but local and international human rights groups which shows that working together can have an impact.
Q. What are your futures plans regarding Human Rights?
A. Lots! I’m very excited by Amnesty’s new Dignity campaign and want to look at possibilities for taking this forward with our section in Nepal. The section there recently had a caravan touring the country highlighting workers rights and there’s also a lot of important work to do on the millennium goals.
Q. Advice for people who want to come in the same field and want to adopt the same path like you.
A. This may be a cliché but Gramsci’s advice to have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will has been handy.
It’s very important to have an understanding that it’s not easy to take on governments and challenge injustice. You often need a long term perspective to have faith that change is possible.
At the same time there’s an incredible energy and motivation in being part of a global movement. 2.8 million people support Amnesty – they believe in the indivisibility of rights and want a better world based on the ethical foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I’m inspired by Amnesty activists who sometimes go to enormous lengths at a very personal level to raise awareness of rights issues.
Sometimes when I’ve felt exhausted – I’m thinking here of the final months of the war in Sri Lanka, when it was difficult to know that people in the No Fire Zone were being deliberately shelled and the world didn’t seem to be able to respond, I have suddenly been uplifted by the actions of human rights colleagues around the world who held a vigil or wrote letters to their policy makers refusing to accept injustices.
I would urge anyone interested in this field to form a rights group and start to engage in solidarity actions. We are only part of the way on the journey to the UDHR vision and it matters that people care and take action and refuse to accept a world or politicians that are indifferent.
