“The British government’s delay in seeking international justice for victims of genocide must be a matter of continuing shame for our country.

“We as British citizens demand that the British government lives up to its international obligations, that it recognizes formally that genocide has occurred in Sri Lanka and it moves the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council and General Assembly for an international investigation.

“I know that the entire British people stand with us in this demand. Because it is consistent with fairness and the rule of law, both of which are deeply held British values.”

- Jan Jananayagam, Tamils Against Genocide. See here the full text of her speech at the London vigil on May 18, for the victims of Sri Lanka’s massacres in 2009.

India on Tuesday urged Sri Lanka to probe human rights abuses, implicitly endorsing the UN expert panel’s report, which made allegations of war crimes committed in the last stages of the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers.

In a break with tradition, and despite refraining from joining international endorsements of the UN report, India "urged the expeditious implementation of measures by the government of Sri Lanka, including... investigations into allegations of human rights violations," a statement said.

The comments were included in the bilateral communique issued after talks in Delhi between the two countries' foreign ministers, SM Krishna and GL Peiris, following a visit to India by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister. 

The statement also quotes the Indian delegation as saying that Colombo should ensure the resettlement of all internally displaced people and promote "genuine reconciliation".

Peiris trashed the allegations in the UN report, telling reporters that the document was “fundamentally flawed,” the Express News Service reported.

“Any action based on it would be unfair,’’ he said. He blamed the UN panel for not identifying sources on the basis on which it came to its conclusions. “It’s a travesty of justice, ’’ he said.

Sri Lanka and Iran are finalising plans to expand trade ties between the two countries. Currently there is about $120 million worth of annual trade between the two countries, but the Iranian Foreign Minister expressed hopes that it would reach $400 million. 

The announcement came during a visit to Iran by a Sri Lankan delegation, seeing to promote industrial and commercial ties.

Commenting on the ‘already existing favorable ties’ between the two countries, the Iranian Foreign Minister noted that Islamic Republic is ready to expand relations with Sri Lanka in the industrial area, construction of cement factory, machine manufacturing and building construction, IRNA reported.

Ties between Sri Lanka and Iran are ‘very good’ Iran’s Commerce Minister Mahdi Ghazanfari was quoted as saying, adding that the Sri Lankan government has backed Iran in international circles.

In the last days of Sri Lanka’s war in mid-May 2009, over 300,000 Tamil civilians fled from the war zone and were housed in internment camps in sub-standard conditions. Gradually they have been released from the camps, and the Sri Lankan government has tried to claim credit for a ‘return to normalcy’ or improving conditions.

But a recent report from the OCHA paints a different picture and gives more accurate figures.  

Over 373,000 civilians have been released from the Menik Farm detention centres as of mid May 2011, but more than 16,000, mainly from Mullaitivu, still remain in the Vavuniya camps.

The total population returned to the Northern Province is 373,593 people (114,561 families), the report states, adding that the resettlement of Menik Farm IDPs of Kilinochchi origin is complete.

The vast majority of the remaining 16,401 people (4,981 families) hail from Mullaitivu District. Ongoing de-mining and the failure to release ‘several Grama Niladhari Divisions (GNDs)’ for demining are cited as the reasons for the failure to return these people.

However of the people released, ‘an approximate total of 117,888 IDPs, including from the protracted caseload [were] living with host families in Vavuniya (18,589 persons), Mannar (4,928 persons) and Jaffna (94,371 persons) Districts’ while another ‘1,758 persons (467 families)’ were stranded in transit locations in Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya Districts.

See the full report here.

“During this month, we all must not be guilty of forgetting our history. We must instead actively remember the sufferings of our people, and educate our peers about their plight. We can all bear witness to the truth of what happened, and we must educate our friends, peers, coworkers, and neighbors.”

- Mathusan Mahalingam, Canadian Tamil activist. See his comment here

“President Mahinda Rajapaksa invited four selected editors to a meal last Friday, to seek their views and advice as to how the government should react to the panel report.

“Though all four were not from national newspapers two of them said that the government should consider even sending troops to New York to assault Ban Ki-moon if the need arises.

“The third was more moderate. He said that reality had to be faced. He proceeded to ask several questions as to what plans  the government had to handle the panel report.

“The two editors who spoke earlier butted in at this stage before Rajapaksa could respond and said there was no other plan or option but to attack Ban Ki-moon and the western nations.

“President Rajapaksa, taking strength from these sentiments, agreed that the Western nations must be taught a lesson.

“The editor who raised a moderate voice was silent thereafter. The fourth editor kept silent throughout this discussion.”

- reported in The Sunday Leader, May 15th. See here.

“It is completely obvious Sri Lanka is a country where people are subjected to various forms of persecution. We are reasonably sure there were liquidations during the last stage of the civil war.”

The European Parliament (EP) Thursday welcomed in a resolution the UN expert panel’s report on Sri Lanka and applauded UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who commissioning the report, for publishing it.

The EP statement follows a similar declaration Wednesday by the High Representative, Catherine Ashton, on behalf of the European Union. (see here)

The EP expressed its concern at the serious nature of the allegations in the UN report and stressed that those allegations, and the issue of accountability for them, must be properly addressed before lasting reconciliation can be achieved in Sri Lanka.

“[The EP] takes the view that, in the interests of justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, the allegations contained in the UN panel of experts' report warrant a full, impartial and transparent investigation, and encourage the Government of Sri Lanka to respond constructively to the recommendations made by the panel of experts.”

The EP also called on the Sri Lankan government “to implement the panel's recommendations, starting with the ‘immediate measures’, and immediately to commence genuine investigations into the violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

It also welcomed the UN Secretary-General's decision to respond positively to the panel's call for a review of the UN's actions regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates during the war in Sri Lanka, particularly in the final stages of the conflict.

See the full text of the resolution here. 

These are extracts from a speech in parliament on May 3 by Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National party (UNP), on the UN expert panel’s report on Sri Lanka’s war crimes (see full text here):

“We made it clear that we will whole-heartedly extend our cooperation to the government in respect of all genuine efforts to uphold our sovereignty and democracy.”

“The present situation is perhaps the single most difficult position we have faced externally since the [Indian] airdrops of 1987.

“In whatever we do, we, as a responsible party in the Opposition are committed to putting the country first.

“I do not intend to make political debating points on a partisan basis. The stakes are too high for this. We need to be unified and dignified in our response to what is a major challenge to our nation.

“India has issued a statement that they will engage with the Government of Sri Lanka on the issues contained in this Report. This is welcome. We must maintain good relations with our neighbours. I also appreciate the statement made by China, a good friend. It is also necessary to maintain similar engagements with other friendly countries. These countries helped us to defeat the LTTE, to freeze its financial resources and destroy its network in the western world.”

“In conclusion at this crucial moment, I would like to remind ourselves of the apt quotation read by J R Jayawardene, who was then Prime Minister, when he made his last speech as a Member of Parliament: ‘Turn the search lights inwards, Be a lamp unto yourself, Hold fast to the truth; no harm can come to you in this life and the next.”

Premier Jayawardene amended Sri Lanka’s constitution in 1978 to create the office of the President; he then became its first occupant.

Just days before the 1983 Black July riots in which three thousand Tamils were massacred, mostly in the Colombo, and the rest driven out, this is what President Jayawardene told the Daily Telegraph (11 July 1983):

“I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people.. now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion ... Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy.”

Two years after Sri Lanka's genocidal onslaught against the Tamil population reached a zenith in a tiny enclave in the island's north, the horrors unleashed between January and May 2009 have come under international scrutiny. The United Nations expert panel's report on the closing stages of the armed conflict has set out in harrowing detail how Sri Lanka's 'systematic persecution' resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, through mass bombardment amid a blockade on food and medicine. The report has been welcomed by the US, UK and EU, among others, who have called for action over the war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The furor within Sri Lanka that followed the release of the UN report, however, has underlined the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the country's crisis. Whilst the Tamils have collectively welcomed the UN report and its call for an independent inquiry into the conduct of the war, the Sinhala polity, with overwhelming support from its constituents, have united in fierce opposition. The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has drawn support from the other Sinhala parties, including the main opposition UNP, in resisting an independent inquiry, as well as action over the mass crimes.

To begin with, the events and issues the UN report sets out are no revelation. Sri Lanka's mass killings, its blockade on food and medicine, its refusal to allow humanitarian access, and so on were being highlighted every day from January to May 2009, and afterwards. The Tamil press reported daily, providing details, photographs, and video. International human rights groups repeatedlyprotested that hospitals were being targeted. Tens of thousands of Tamil expatriates took to the streets in Western capitals and outside the UN in Geneva.

To no avail. Even amid the visible slaughter, what was unfolding in Vanni was framed primarily as a government's legitimate war against a rebel group. Amid their conviction that the defeat of the LTTE would pave the way to a political solution, peace and stability, the US, UK and EU supported Sri Lanka's military campaign. They were wrong. The destruction of the LTTE has instead ushered in an era of institutionalized racial supremacy and simmering ethnic tension. It is amid a growing recognition of this that the closing stages of the armed conflict has come under renewed scrutiny.

In a genuine democracy, the shocking findings of the UN report ought to have produced critical questioning of the government's conduct, if not introspection about the country's armed conflict. In particular, an independent inquiry into what happened in the war’s closing stages  should have drawn broad support.

Instead, however, the Sinhala press and opposition parties have rallied to the government's side. The point here is not that the Sinhala polity doesn't believe that mass killings of Tamils took place, but that it is singularly unmoved. The outrage directed at the UN report, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and the international community - primarily Western actors - stems from a conviction that in defence of Sinhala rule anything and everything is justified and necessary.

Sri Lanka is not a democracy, but an ethnocracy. Since independence, the Sinhala polity, supported the overwhelming majority of the Sinhala populace, has pursued a hierarchical ethnic ordering. Crushing Tamil opposition, manifest first in political agitation and mass protests, and later in armed struggle, is an integral part of this project.

Which is why the UN report has produced the reactions it has. Whilst the notions of sovereignty and independence are held forth - alongside charges of neocolonialism and Western domination - the underling conviction that is a Sinhala-dominated political order is right and legitimate. In that sense, the greatest threat to this racialised utopia is the international community.

In our editorial on the first anniversary of the end of the war, we argued that accounting for 2009 would become the defining principle of Tamil-Sinhala relations. The events of recent weeks underscore this. Accountability for what the UN panel catalogues as war crimes and crimes and humanity (whilst making clear the systematic nature of these that give force to Tamils' claim of genocide) is closely bound up producing with a stable political solution and a lasting peace - a point the US, UK, and EU also argue.

What the international community must recognise, however, is that the converse is also true: Sinhala resistance to accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity is closely bound up with a deep-seated refusal to share power with the Tamils, let alone accepting them as a legitimate political community in the island. 

The following is a declaration by the High Representative, Catherine Ashton, on behalf of the European Union:

“The EU considers that the publication of the report of the UN Secretary-General Panel of Experts on accountability in Sri Lanka is an important development. It will be recalled that the EU had welcomed the appointment of the Panel by the UNSG in June 2010.

“The Panel has concluded that there are credible allegations that major violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed on all sides in the conflict.

“The EU reiterates its view that an independent process to address these extremely serious allegations should contribute to strengthening the process of reconciliation and ensuring lasting peace and security in Sri Lanka. As the report says, the issue of accountability should be seen as an essential part of the process of national reconciliation.

“The EU therefore hopes that the Government of Sri Lanka will recognise the constructive objectives of the report, and encourages it to engage with the UNSG on its contents."

The EU statement comes ahead of an EU Parliamentary discussion on the UN report on Thursday (May 12), according to The Sunday Times.

Sri Lanka's ambassador to Brussels told the paper: “We are already lobbying parties to ensure that the final resolution has the correct balance.”

Last week the UK's Foreign Office also welcomed the UN experts' report, adding:

“The UK has consistently called for an independent and credible investigation to address these allegations which is why we fully supported the decision of the Secretary-General to establish the Panel of Experts,” a statement said.

“The report sets out the importance of a genuine and independent investigation, so that allegations of abuses are seen to have been addressed. We encourage Sri Lanka to use its response to the UN report and the report’s recommendations to strengthen the process of accountability and support lasting peace and security.”

“The serious nature of the allegations in the report underline that these allegations, and the issue of accountability for them, must be resolved before lasting reconciliation can be achieved in Sri Lanka.”

See also the statements by the United States and India.

"The discussion of the applicable law and legal findings at p. 52 et seq [in the UN expert panel’s report on the conclusion of Sri Lanka’s war] seem to me to be more or less watertight. There are no flights of fancy here; even when broad or progressive, the legal findings are appropriately cautious when caution is warranted.”

- Marko Milanovic, lecturer in law, Nottingham University. See here his note on the blog of the European Journal of International Law.

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Note: The UN-released pdf of the expert panel's report has the cut-and-paste function disabled. However, a quotable verson is available here, provided by Dov Jacobs.