HUMAN RIGHTS IN SRI LANKA: SOME IMPROVEMENT BUT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 08 COLOMBO 001225 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/05/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER PHUM MOPS CE SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS IN SRI LANKA: SOME IMPROVEMENT BUT MORE REMAINS TO BE DONE REF: A) COLOMBO 977 B) COLOMBO 1036 C) COLOMBO 1078 D) COLOMBO 728 E) COLOMBO 722 F) COLOMBO 709 G) COLOMBO 413 H) COLOMBO 463 I) COLOMBO 809 J) COLOMBO 1187 K) COLOMBO 920 L) COLOMBO 746 M) COLOMBO 899 N) COLOMBO 959 O) COLOMBO 409 P) COLOMBO 1218 Classified By: Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Jr. Reasons: 1.4(b, d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The period April-June 2007 showed a decline relative to the beginning of the year in Colombo and some other parts of Sri Lanka in certain categories of human rights abuses, such as abductions. However, the overall level of human rights violations compared to 2002-2005 remains elevated. Since human rights violations are conflict-driven, the improvement may largely be due to an abatement in fighting after government forces reasserted control over the Eastern Province. The continuing role of paramilitary groups such as the Eelam Peoples' Democratic Party (EPDP) in Jaffna and the Karuna group (TMVP) in the East raises important questions about the durability of the improvement. There are some indications that the frequency of abuses began to climb again recently, but reliable statistics for August are not yet available. The situation in Jaffna remains grave, with abductions continuing and extrajudicial killings on the rise. There has been negligible progress on punishing those responsible for serious human rights violations. Further developments in a few high-profile cases, including some of those within the mandate of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, will provide a useful indicator of the government's commitment to improve on accountability. The overall number of child soldiers serving in the Tamil Tigers and the Karuna group is falling, but child recruitment has not stopped. Pressure on the English-language media in Colombo has eased somewhat, although one prominent defense journalist left the country on September 3 to seek temporary refuge abroad. Attacks on Tamil journalists have continued unabated. Embassy is encouraged by the progress so far, but believes that consistent pressure from the U.S. and other friends of Sri Lanka will be needed to sustain the positive trend. The government's control of the East carries with it the responsibility to ensure a political, security and human rights environment that will reassure Tamils and other minorities. We must make clear to the government that the situation is Jaffna is unacceptable, and to find ways ease the pressure on Tamil media. Please see Embassy conclusions and recommendation in paragraphs 33 to 34. End summary. ABDUCTIONS DOWN IN JUNE; IMPROVEMENT SPOTTY -------------- ¶2. (C) Statistics on disappearances and other human rights abuses are gathered by different organizations, using different methodologies for different purposes, and often covering different time frames. While this makes it difficult to reconcile discrepancies, comparisons of the data available reveal trends. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provides the best overview of abduction and disappearance cases. ICRC has access to detainees held by all the conflict parties, including the GSL, the LTTE, and Karuna group, and maintains full case files, not just names and dates of presumed abductions. The ICRC is able to intervene and solve about 1/3 of disappearance cases when families reported them early (within a maximum of about five days) and provided accurate information. ICRC follows up systematically with the families, visits detainees and meets regularly with the GSL and other parties to the conflict. ¶3. (C) The senior ICRC protection officer in Colombo briefed Pol Chief on updated statistics the ICRC had provided to the government of Sri Lanka (GSL) and shared with us on a confidential basis; these figures should not be shared SIPDIS COLOMBO 00001225 002 OF 008 outside the USG. Overall, April-June 2007 was less violent than January-March, he said. The ICRC, like other sources, reports a significant drop in abductions in Colombo, and in some northern districts. However, the number of disappearances remains high in the East; and the number of unsolved cases remains high everywhere. ICRC figures for disappearances, island-wide, over the past year: 2006 Q3 467 234 solved 233 remain Q4 318 152 solved 160 remain 2007 Q1 458 183 solved 275 remain Q2 230 79 solved 151 remain ¶4. (SBU) Three Sri Lankan NGOS publicly released a paper they submitted to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on August 22, confirming that the victims of human rights abuses ) the dead and disappeared ) are overwhelmingly young, male Tamils from the conflict-torn North and East. Over seventy percent of the conflict-related fatalities were Tamils. (Tamils make up only 16% of the total population.) The killings are unevenly distributed geographically: the government-controlled Jaffna peninsula, with about 3.5% of the island's population, had 23 percent of the killings. Other hot spots for extrajudicial killings were the eastern district of Batticaloa and the border area of Vavuniya. Nearly all the victims of abductions were Tamils. ¶5. (C) ICRC data have consistently revealed the East as the source of most disappearance cases. This includes the districts of Trincomalee, Ampara, Batticaloa, and "border" areas of Polonnaruwa. The East is first in the incidence of detainees allegedly "arrested" by a party to the conflict, as well as those who disappeared in unknown circumstances. The northern districts of Jaffna and Vavuniya follow, with a lesser incidence of disappearances in Mannar, Anuradhapura, and the LTTE-controlled Vanni. ¶6. (C) The ICRC noted that the situation in the East was characterized by the problem of armed groups' aggression against civilians, similar to that in Jaffna. In the case of the East, the most vulnerable civilians are those displaced by the conflict, who are at the mercy of the Karuna faction. The ICRC protection officer feared that if the influence of the Karuna group continues to increase, the situation in the East will begin to resemble that in Jaffna (ref a). ¶7. (C) The ICRC protection officer underscored that his organization has never received any substantial information from any of the conflict parties that would point to the culpability of any of its members. He added that to his knowledge, police have never updated family members as to whether an investigation has been instituted or is continuing. ¶8. (C) Our ICRC contact was adamant that government claims that the majority of cases concern people who have "disappeared" voluntarily are not true. People disappear "forcefully," he said. Contrary to GSL claims, they almost never emigrate or go on foreign trips without telling their families. While the ICRC does not track cases of recruitment COLOMBO 00001225 003 OF 008 of adults, he acknowledged that there were a very small number of cases in which a person reported missing later turns out to have been recruited by the LTTE or the Karuna faction. ¶9. (C) ICRC documented only 149 cases of disappearances island-wide in 2005. This rose to 1,134 in 2006, the first year of the Rajapaksa government, as the ethnic conflict escalated. The first quarter of calendar year 2007 showed a sharp spike, making it probably the worst quarter for abductions since Sri Lanka's independence in 1948. (Note: the period of the JVP insurrection in the South in 1988-1990 was far worse for extrajudicial killings, however.) With the relative improvement in April-June 2007, the incidence of abductions returned roughly to 2006 levels, but was still much higher than during the CFA. ¶10. (C) ICRC figures are updated quarterly. The most recent statistics available are current through June 2007. Whether the noted improvement in early summer has been sustained will not be clear until third quarter numbers are ready, about the end of October. The protection officer confided, though, that based on the number of new cases he has seen and documented in July and August, it appeared that the trend had reversed. He thought the number of abductions, especially in northern districts, was again headed upwards. ¶11. (C) The ICRC has much less confidence in the reliability of its statistics on killings. Families, especially Jaffna residents, are reluctant to report these cases for fear of becoming victims themselves. Still, the ICRC noted a decline in reported summary executions, island-wide, from 50 in the first quarter of 2007 to 34 in the second quarter. RECRUITMENT OF CHILDREN -------------- ¶12. (C) The ICRC and UNICEF saw an overall decline in the cumulative number of child soldiers serving in the LTTE, Karuna faction, and other armed groups in the first semester of 2007. The protection officer thought that the drop in cases reported in the LTTE-held Vanni could be due to pressure on parents not to report. The same would apply to the Karuna faction, he said. SITUATION IN JAFFNA PROBABLY GETTING WORSE -------------- ¶13. (C) The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA),a respected Sri Lankan NGO, has also provided us with statistics on abductions, killings, and cases of bodily injury in the conflict-affected districts of the north and east. In contrast to the ICRC figures, CPA shows the principal locus of human rights violations is Jaffna, not the East. (Embassy believes this is probably due to the CPA's lack of access to detention facilities and resources to collect reports from victims' families. CPA figures for the East are quite low; Embassy considers the Red Cross figures more reliable.) The CPA figures show a slight dip in abductions in Jaffna from May to June, but a return to higher levels in July and August. More significantly, there were nearly twice as many extrajudicial killings as abductions in Jaffna, and these show a steady rise from the spring through summer 2007 (refs b, c). ¶14. (C) While some assign the blame for the dire situation in Jaffna directly to the military authorities, there is an increasing body of evidence documenting close cooperation between army intelligence in Jaffna and the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP),an anti-LTTE Tamil militia (refs d, e, f). Its leader, Social Affairs Minister Douglas Devananda, who is believed responsible for numerous killings, is fiercely opposed to the LTTE. Devananda appears to have COLOMBO 00001225 004 OF 008 been given a free hand to deal with those in Jaffna he suspects of ties to the LTTE by whatever means necessary. ¶15. (C) DCM and Pol Chief asked Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa about the apparently worsening situation in Jaffna in a meeting on August 9. Gothabaya declined to respond directly, noting only "I thought that the overall situation in the country had improved" and observing that "they're dealing with a difficult situation up there." GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO AMBASSADOR'S LIST -------------- ¶16. (C) A diplomatic note from the Foreign Ministry to the Embassy on May 30, 2007 is the only direct response we have received to date on the list of approximately 355 names of abductees we submitted to the Presidential Secretariat following a meeting on March 8 between SCA PDAS Mann and President Mahinda Rajapaksa (ref g). The note addresses only 14 of the 355 cases. It states that immigration records show six of the individuals on the list (or persons with similar or identical names) either applied for passports or departed Sri Lanka after their reported abductions. Two of the people on the list were killed, one was arrested by the army, one was released after his abduction, two had returned home, and two had been "traced by Jaffna police" (no further information). The Ministry told the Embassy that it and other parts of the government continue to investigate the other names on our list, but progress has been halting. ONE-MAN COMMISSION -------------- ¶17. (C) The same diplomatic note refers to the interim reports of Mahanama Thilakaratne's "One-Man" Commission of Inquiry into Disappearances appointed by President Rajapaksa (ref h). Thilakaratne, a former High Court judge, is a close associate of the President. According to the note, only 79 of the cases on the Embassy's list had been reported to Thilakaratne. Of those, 14 abductions took place outside the time frame established for the "One-Man Commission." ¶18. (U) Thilakaratne gave a press interview on August 31 in which he stated that of 1992 disappearance cases from September 2006 to March 2007, 1425 of the individuals had returned. He said he was still probing into 567 cases, and would release the results within two months. It is not clear from where Thilakaratne derived these numbers. The number of "disappeared," for example, is more than twice as high as reported by the Red Cross, while the percentage of those who have returned far exceeds that reported by the Red Cross. It is not possible to confirm Thilakaratne's information, since he has so far released his report only to President Rajapaksa. Thilakaratne's first interim report, which we have seen, indicates that the lack of resources for his "Commission" and other, self-imposed constraints have led to spotty, haphazard research. Our ICRC contact commented privately that Thilakaratne's numbers for both disappearances and their resolutions were impossibly high. INTIMIDATION CONTINUES -------------- ¶19. (C) Recent cases show that the security establishment has not abandoned the use of strong-arm tactics when it sees its vital interests threatened. In the aftermath of the attempted eviction by police and army of temporary Tamil residents of Colombo in June (ref i),seven residents of one hostel filed a "fundamental rights" case in Supreme Court against senior officials, including Inspector General of Police Victor Perera and Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa. On August 15, the owner of the lodge discovered that some transient residents had left behind a bundle COLOMBO 00001225 005 OF 008 including claymore mines and other explosive devices. He immediately reported the find to police, who detained him for questioning over two days. They then suggested that the case against him would be dropped if the plaintiffs in the eviction case dropped their lawsuit against the authorities. The lodge owner subsequently left for India after receiving explicit threats that his schoolage daughters would be abducted. MEDIA FREEDOM -------------- ¶20. (C) Attacks on journalists, especially Tamils, continued unabated in July and August. A 22 year old Jaffna journalism student was shot dead in his home on August 1; another Tamil journalist who had previously been assaulted by air force personnel was the victim of acid-throwing that caused serious injuries. In the most celebrated case (ref j),Iqbal Athas, defense analyst for the Sunday Times (Colombo),Jane's Defense weekly and CNN, had his security detail withdrawn by the Defense Ministry and was subsequently threatened in connection with reporting on irregularities in the acquisition of four MiG-27 planes for the Sri Lankan Air force. Athas left Sri Lanka to seek temporary refuge abroad on September 3. ACCOUNTABILITY -------------- ¶21. (C) Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena, deputy director of the Law and Society Trust, and author of a confidential legal opinion commissioned by the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP),noted that since 1948 a number of Commissions have been appointed to look into disappearances. Few of these have reached credible outcomes. The more successful ones have been those appointed to look into misdeeds of previous governments. None have directly resulted in prosecutions of those found responsible. There is no provision under Sri Lankan law for the findings of Commissions of Inquiry, which operate under relaxed rules of evidence, to be taken into account by prosecutors or the criminal courts. ¶22. (C) Since Sri Lanka's 1994 accession to the UN Convention Against Torture until 2006, there have been just three convictions for torture which have not later been overturned on appeal, Pinto-Jayawardena noted. 3615 investigations into "enforced disappearances" initiated since 1994 by the Disappearance Investigations Unit have led to proceedings in just 432 cases. In these cases, there have been 12 convictions, only two of those in high-profile cases. Charges have been dropped in 130 cases. The majority of cases remain pending. Even when as a result of inquiries the Supreme Court had ordered filing of charges against identified suspects, prosecutors often failed to do so. Pinto-Jayawardena pointed out there is no public access to court records. Releasing information about pending cases was formerly at the discretion of the Attorney General, but the incumbent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a Sinhalese hardliner, recently issued an order prohibiting the release to third parties of information relating to human rights cases against the security forces (ref k). COMMISSION OF INQUIRY -------------- ¶23. (C) The government has frequently cited the President's nomination of a Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Abuses (CoI) and the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) as evidence of its intent to establish accountability for the 16 high-profile cases enumerated in the Commission's mandate. However, the history of previous commissions shows that a successful outcome of the current COLOMBO 00001225 006 OF 008 CoI is anything but assured. In private conversations, IIGEP members, including U.S. Eminent Person Gene Dewey, have told us that progress in clearing up the 16 cases has been "glacial." It is questionable whether even one of the cases will be resolved before the CoI's mandate expires in November ¶2007. While the GSL may well choose to extend the CoI's mandate by a year or more, it is doubtful that the Eminent Persons will ask for such an extension or request additional funding from the donors for this purpose. ¶24. (C) The CoI has so far expended most of its efforts on the killings of seventeen Tamil humanitarian workers of the French NGO Action Against Hunger (ACF) in Muttur on August 4, ¶2006. IIGEP sources told us that weeks of interviews have produced little but endlessly repetitive questioning of witnesses, led by the Solicitor General, into circumstances preceding the massacre but not directly relevant to discovering the identity of the perpetrators. They note that the killing of five young students in Trincomalee on January 2, 2006 is "open and shut," but that inadequate arrangements for witness protection threaten to short-circuit the inquiry (ref l). The CoI has not begun to look into another apparently easily solvable case, that of the killing of ten Muslims in Pottuvil near a mosque on September 17, 2006. GAJANAYAKE CASE -------------- ¶25. (C) Embassy has examined the lists Sri Lankan Ambassador to the U.S. Bernard Goonetilleke turned over to SCA PDAS Steven Mann on August 8. It is difficult to assess the status of indictments returned against 90 persons in 2004 to 2007 in the absence of further information identifying those cases and without access to court records. The few such cases that ever reach the trial stage may take a decade to do so; the courts are now dealing with cases from the mid-1990s. If the historical pattern continues, it is unlikely that many of these will result in convictions, let alone significant sentences for the perpetrators. It is highly probable that none of them will come to trial within the term of the current Sri Lankan administration, which runs until ¶2010. ¶26. (C) According to an RSO police contact, all six names on the list of recent arrestees are related to the case of retired Air Force Wing Commander Nishantha Gajanayake (ref m),which has received wide media coverage and has been the subject of parliamentary debate. Gajanayake's last position before his retirement was that of executive officer to then-Air Force Commander Donald Perera, now Chief of Defense Staff. According to accusations leveled in Parliament in early June by the opposition UNP, Gajanayake ran an abduction, murder and extortion ring under the direction of senior officials, including Colombo Criminal Investigation Division Deputy Inspector General Rohan Abeywardene, that ultimately reported to the highest levels of the Sri Lankan government. If there is any truth to this, Embassy considers it improbable that charges will be filed against Gajanayake (ref n). ¶27. (C) There are, however, similar cases from the mid-1990s now working their way through the courts involving officials who have since been promoted and are now in key positions in MoD. We are following a case dating from 1996 involving the disappearance of 25 villagers from the Jaffna peninsula in which Lt. Col. Duminda Keppetiwalana, now the executive assistant of Army Commander Fonseka, is implicated. (Keppetiwalana has been denied U.S.-funded training under the Leahy Amendment because of pending charges against him, ref o.) The magistrate who was handling the case has since been transferred from Jaffna to Colombo and demoted to juvenile court. If the 1996 case is quashed, it will be an indication that Sri Lanka is making little headway on accountability. COLOMBO 00001225 007 OF 008 ¶28. (C) The handling of more recent cases, such as the massacre of 13 residents of Allaipity (Kayts island) allegedlly at the hands of Navy personnel on May 13, 2006, and the killing of five students at a Vavuniya agricultural college on November 18, 2006, apparently by army and STF personnel, will also reveal whether Sri Lanka has developed the political will to enforce discipline, apply the rules of war, and hold its servicemen and police accountable for abuses. GENEVA HRC SEPTEMBER SESSION -------------- ¶29. (C) According to a source close to President Rajapaksa's inner circle, the GSL has counted votes within the Human Rights Council and is confident it can defeat any country resolution on Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan media are reporting that Sri Lankan PermRep in Geneva Dayan Jayatilleke, who is known for his hardline Sinhalese views, will be reinforced by Attorney General C.R. De Silva (another hawk) and a three-man team of Deputy Solicitors General. This would indicate that the delegation will treat any debate about Sri Lanka in the HRC as an adversarial proceeding. ¶30. (C) Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told Ambassador on August 24 that the GSL will take the position that the HRC's decision to move forward beginning in 2008 with the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, a peer group process with observers, would render any country-specific resolution on Sri Lanka unnecessary. ¶31. (C) CONCLUSIONS -------------- -- July and August have seen a reduction in the number of abductions reported, particularly in the Colombo area. -- It is not true that abductions have "gone to zero," as some have alleged. -- The overall incidence of human rights violations appears to have abated in the second quarter of CY 2007 compared to the first quarter. -- The frequency of human rights violations has returned to its approximate level in autumn 2006, and remains far above the levels seen before the election of President Rajapaksa in November 2005. -- Disappearances have continued at a high rate in the East. The human rights situation has shown little improvement there, although the potential exists for an improvement if stability returns. -- As reported elsewhere, the outcome of the government's plan for the recovery and development of the East will be crucial. Any future role of the Karuna group as a paramilitary will have serious consequences for human rights abuses. -- The GSL will resist any Sri Lanka-specific resolution in Geneva because it believes it has the votes to defeat a resolution. Efforts similar to last year's to negotiate a more mildly worded resolution will probably be futile. ¶34. (C) RECOMMENDATIONS -------------- -- Sustained U.S. and international pressure will be needed to keep the GSL on track for improving its human rights record. COLOMBO 00001225 008 OF 008 -- The U.S., as an influential non-member of the HRC, may want to consider supporting a reasonably worded EU resolution on Sri Lanka (that acknowledges some progress),even if the votes do not appear to be there to pass it. -- If decisions are made not to receive Sri Lanka officials at the highest levels in Washington, we should use available opportunities for less senior Washington-based officials to deliver tough messages on the need for a concerted, genuine effort to improve Sri Lanka's human rights record and hold those guilty of abuses accountable. -- We should link a sustained improvement on human rights to U.S. ability to provide certain types of assistance, including a possible Millennium Challenge Compact and more robust forms of security cooperation. -- U.S. assistance to help Sri Lanka improve its forensic capability (ref p) will not only help address the GSL's poor record of investigation and conviction, it will give the Embassy important access. We should also provide whatever assistance we can to human rights defenders in Sri Lanka, who remain under duress (see September 5 Embassy email to SCA/INS). BLAKE