SRI LANKA: UN RAPPORTEUR, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 COLOMBO 002059 SIPDIS STATE FOR SA/INS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/06/2015 TAGS: PHUM PTER PGOV CE LTTE SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: UN RAPPORTEUR, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS LTTE ON HUMAN RIGHTS REF: A. COLOMBO 1656 ¶B. COLOMBO 2040 Classified By: DCM. JAMES F. ENTWISTLE. REASON: 1.4 (B,D). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Overlapping visits by Amnesty International (AI) Secretary General Irene Khan and UN Special Rapporteur on SIPDIS Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Killings Philip Alston during the first week of December focused on continuing political assassinations and the danger they pose to the increasingly fragile Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). AI believes that the failure or inability of the Government to investigate these killings has created a dangerous vacuum in the ceasefire, which could easily escalate. AI may propose the formation of an independent commission to investigate the killings, while Alston advocated an expanded human rights role for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). Both AI and Alston in their separate meetings with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) representatives pressed the Tigers to observe the CFA and halt child recruitment. AI wants the international community to send a "tough message" to both parties not to miss the existing narrow window of opportunity to re-engage. End summary. -------------- PERVASIVE SENSE OF "GREAT DREAD" -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On December 6 Amnesty International (AI) officials Dr. Purna Sen, Director of the Asia-Pacific Regional Program, and Elizabeth Rowsell, South Asia Team member, briefed members of the diplomatic community on AI Secretary General Irene Khan's December 1-5 visit to Sri Lanka. The purpose of the visit, Sen said, was ostensibly to follow up on a research mission on IDPs and political killings AI had conducted to Sri Lanka in August; the underlying purpose was to establish a dialogue with the new government and to exert pressure on both the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) to prioritize human rights. During her visit, Khan met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, representatives of the opposition United National Party (UNP),the Norwegian Ambassador, the Indian High Commissioner, members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM),representatives of the Muslim Peace Secretariat, and NGO officials. Khan also visited camps for �0A;SIPDIS internally displaced persons in Jaffna and traveled to Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) headquarters in the northern district of Kilinochcchi on December 3, where she met Tiger political wing leader Tamilchelvan. ¶3. (C) In general, Sen said, the AI mission had perceived a sense of "great dread" among its non-LTTE interlocutors that an escalation of hostilities was imminent. AI's discussions with representatives of the Muslim community and NGOs active in Muslim areas indicated growing feelings of "exclusion and marginalization" within the group which, AI cautioned, could have dangerous long-term repercussions. The failure or inability of the GSL to investigate political killings, which Sen estimated had surpassed 200 in 2005, had created a dangerous vacuum that could lead to greater violence. Since investigating killings or otherwise enforcing the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) is not in SLMM's mandate, and since Government interlocutors complained to AI that they were unable to investigate political killings that occur in government-controlled territory because witnesses are afraid to come forward and/or suspects flee to LTTE territory, AI is considering proposing in its final report an independent commission to investigate the assassinations. (Sen said the Government seemed to welcome the idea, while the LTTE, which thought the SLMM was doing just fine, was noncommittal when the subject was broached.) ¶4. (C) Sen summarized AI's conclusions from the visit as follows: --Security remains the overriding concern of all parties; --While there is no consensus on how to improve security, all options should be fleshed out; --There is a narrow window of opportunity for a fresh start created by Rajapaksa's recent election that neither side should neglect; --The international community should urge both parties to take advantage of this opportunity. She noted that President Rajapaksa emphasized to Khan that he sees shortcomings in the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) that must be reviewed. In addition, he indicated that he wanted the mandate of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) revised as well. Foreign Minister Samaraweera, on the other hand, said in a separate meeting that implementation of the CFA--rather than the CFA itself--must be revised. Sen commented that AI was unsure what to make of this mixed message. -------------- LTTE ROLLS OUT RED CARPET FOR AI; INVITES "FACT-FINDING" MISSION IN FUTURE -------------- ¶5. (C) In her meeting with Tamilchelvan in Kilinochchi on December 3, Khan stressed the need to curb violations of the CFA, including political killings and child recruitment. Tamilchelvan predictably responded that a) all violations would automatically cease if only the GSL would honor its CFA commitment to disarm paramilitaries (i.e., the Karuna faction); and b) the LTTE does not need to recruit children as it is "overwhelmed" with more than enough volunteers of legal age. (Sen observed, however, that Tamilchelvan belied that claim when he reported later in the same meeting that the LTTE had released 55 child soldiers last month. Moreover, in a separate meeting, the LTTE's version of a human rights commission, known as the North East Secretariat of Human Rights (NESOHR),told the AI delegation that the greatest volume of complaints it received this year was from were from parents complaining that their children were recruited by the LTTE.) When AI continued to press on the issue, Tamilchelvan became "rattled," Sen said, for the only time during the two-hour meeting. ¶6. (C) Sen summarized Tamilchelvan's pitch as follows: --repeated references to the growing sense of "frustration" among the Tamil populace; --despite this "frustration," the LTTE is open to talks with the new government and is giving it some limited time--until "next year"--to produce results; --the international community should press the GSL to implement the CFA (by disarming the Karuna faction and other anti-LTTE militants). Sen noted Tamilchelvan did not respond directly when the AI delegation tried to pinpoint what he meant by "next year," but speculated that his subsequent references to the upcoming four-year anniversary of the CFA in February could indicate action around that time. She said that she perceived no recognition from LTTE interlocutors during AI's discussions that the LTTE must/should change its behavior. ¶7. (C) Sen described Tamilchelvan as "very hospitable" to the AI delegation and "quite keen" on encouraging international involvement in the peace process. She said he invited AI to send a fact-finding mission to Kilinochchi to interview people and determine if the LTTE were indeed guilty of child recruitment and human rights violations. AI is warily mulling over the offer, she reported, and must consider several factors (would AI have genuine access to local people? Would AI be endangering people by interviewing them? Who sets the terms of reference--the LTTE or AI?) before going further. ¶8. (C) Tamilchelvan also granted an unscripted request by the AI delegation to visit an LTTE prison. Sen reported the delegation, accompanied by LTTE handlers and guards throughout the brief tour, saw 27 prisoners being held together in a single unlit cell but had no chance to interview any. She added that the delegation also observed three prisoners were being held in a separate, better lit, cleaner cell and later learned that they were the three Sri Lankan policemen from the Child Protection Authority who have been detained by the LTTE since September (Ref A). -------------- UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR SEES WORRISOME TREND -------------- ¶9. (C) In the same time frame as the AI visit, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Killings Philip Alston is wrapping up a ten-day visit to Sri Lanka during which he traveled in both LTTE and government-controlled areas. During a December 6 briefing to the diplomatic corps, Alston, who had just come from a meeting with Foreign Minister Samaraweera, said he felt that human rights issues had, to a large extent, been lost in the understandable emphasis over the last few years on maintenance of the CFA. The SLMM has no human rights monitoring mandate or capability and frequently, due to time and resource constraints, gave short shrift to CFA violations which involved human rights abuses, delving in only far enough to determine which side was at fault. "There is considerable SLMM ambivalence about human rights violations," Alston said. He advocated an expanded SLMM human rights role rather than a new monitoring body, since the SLMM was already active on the ground and had an administrative structure and presence in sensitive areas. ¶10. (C) At the same time, Alston observed, the Sri Lankan police make almost no effort to seriously investigate killings in the "ceasefire areas" in the north and east. One local police chief told Alston he had 30 open murder cases but no serious suspect in any of them. Too often, Alston said, the police fall back on the convenient excuse that the perpetrators flee to LTTE-controlled areas (undoubtedly true in some cases, Alston added, but without any police effort to verify it). Alston cited the recent grenade attack on a crowded mosque in Akkaraipattu (Ref B) as an egregious example of police investigative lassitude. He observed that the LTTE breakaway Karuna faction is an easy scapegoat, used by both sides, for various killings in the north and east. Alston also opined that "not unfounded" reports of GSL support to the Karuna forces needed to get more attention from the international community. ¶11. (C) Alston said he had a blunt exchange with LTTE political chief Tamilchlvan on December 5 in which Alston described the LTTE record on killings as atrocious. Alston told Tamilchelvan the LTTE needed to publicly denounce killings since it is not enough just to say "it wasn't us." Alston said he found Tamilchelvan somewhat contradictory on the CFA. The LTTE political chief had said the CFA was perfect as is but also agreed on the need for an expanded SLMM human rights monitoring role, although the LTTE had no particular proposal on how to do that, other than to insist it was up to the Norwegian facilitators to "come up with a proposal." Asked for his assessment of NESOHR, Alston said it was mixed: NESOHR's claim to him that the LTTE had never abducted a child was laughable, whereas their proposals for judicial reform "would be well received if they were coming from a newly independent state." -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶12. (C) The Tigers too often see international involvement in the peace process as an easy way to pressure the GSL to remedy its shortcomings without conceding any deficiencies of their own. The stern messages from AI and the UN Rapporteur to their LTTE interlocutors should let the Tigers know that the international community is not buying their line that the GSL is solely responsible for the alarming increase in CFA and human rights violations. An independent authority to investigate the killings--while it does not address the central problem of witness protection--could nonetheless be a good starting point for broader discussions on how better to enforce and implement the CFA. LUNSTEAD