SUB-Commission on
promotion and protection of Human Rights
An Appeal to
The United Nations
Sub-Commission on the Promotion
and
Protection of Human Rights
53 Session / Sesiones
??????2001
(Reports will be added at the earliest)
Tamil Centre for Human Rights -
TCHR
(Established in 1990)
An
Appeal to
The
United Nations
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights
Un
appel à Nations Unies
Sous-Commission de la promotion et
de la protection des droits de l'homme
Una
llamada a Naciones Unidas
Subcomision para la Promocion y Proteccion de
los Derechos Humanos
52
Session / Sesione / Sesion
31
July 2000 18 August 2000
LOGO
Tamil
Centre for Human Rights - TCHR
Centre
Tamoul pour les droits des l'Hommes
Centro
Tamil para los Derechos Humanos
(Established in 1990)
CONTENTS
Appeal
4
UN Secretary General Mr. Koffi
Anna’s recent statements on Sri Lanka 7
Recent United
Nations Reports on Sri Lanka
1.
Report of the Special Rapporteur of Independence judges and Lawyers 8
2.
Report of the Working group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances 11
Sri Lanka still has the 2nd
highest number of disappearances TCHR 14
3.
Report of the Special Rapporteur of Freedom of expression 15
4.
Report of the Special Rapporteur of Disappearances and Summary Executions 16
5.
Report of the Special Rapporteur of Torture and detention 18
6.
Committee Against Torture (53rd session) 23
7.
Report of the Special Rapporteur of Religious Intolerance 24
8.
Press release of Special Rapporteur against violence against women
Assassination
of Kumar Ponnambalam
Special Rapporteur’s
communication 25
Kumar’s assassins protected by politician 26
Are politicians involved in
assassination kept hidden? 28
Identification Parade 29
Economic, social and cultural
rights
Education 30
Health 31
Food 32
Freedom of Expression
EU sponsored seminar questioned 34
Draconian measures against printing
presses Newspapers shut down
Arbitrary
arrests and killings including those related to disappearances
Arbitrary
arrest / detention / torture 35
Arbitrary
killing 38
Sri
Lanka Navy officer committed War Crime 40
Chemani
mass grave
42
skeltons discovered
500
civilian casualties 41
Rights of the
child
Right to life denied 42
Children
assaulted in custody
Rape of children by police and army
Embargo starves children
Violence
against women
Police
force into women’s homes 43
Woman
raped
Young mother killed
Seven
soldiers allegedly raped Ida Hamilitta
Population
displacements and asylum seekers
Refugees in Europe and other Western
countries 44
Civilian evacuation failed
Country Situation Norway Embassy bombed 47
ICRC, UNHCR urged over ceasefire
Sri Lanka rejected cease-fire offer 48
TCHR summary
(names, dates, place of incidents, etc)
Arbitrary arrest / Detention 00
Extra judicial killings / Summary
executions 00
Enforced
or involuntary disappearances 00
Rape / Torture and others 00
ANNEXES :
TCHR letter to the Chairman of Human
Rights Commission 49
Sri Lankan Govt decision
shuts door on talks 50
Bishop’s appeal to foreign missions in Colombo 51
31
July 2000
The Chairperson
Members of the Sub-Commission on
Promotion and Protection of Human
Rights
52nd Session
United Nations
Geneva
Switzerland
Honoured
Sirs / Mesdames
We,
the Tamil Centre for Human Rights - TCHR, herewith submit our appeal with our
summary report on arrests, arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, rape,
torture etc which clearly records the deterioraaing human rights situation in
Sri Lanka.
The
UN Secretary-General has called for the new century to be the century of
prevention. The sensitivity of our reports, based on past incidents, calls for
all possible preventive measures to be urgently taken by the UN Human Rights
forums. The Human Rights situation in
Sri Lanka is far from improving, in fact it is deteriorating, therefore the UN
Human Rights mechanisms are crucial.
Sir/Mesdames,
the latest reports of the UN Special rapporteurs and the Working groups
(included in this appeal) and the statements by the NGOs to the last Commission
on Human Rights clearly indicate that there is imminent danger in Sri Lanka!
It
is crystal clear that Sri Lanka does not reply to many of the communications by
the UN Special rapporteurs and the Working groups. However, this lack of
response even combined with Sri Lanka’s hard lobby within the United Nations
cannot hide certain facts. Sri Lanka still ranks the 2nd highest number
(12,113) of disappearances compared to other countries in the world. It is
noteworthy that Sri Lanka was the only country the Working Group on
Disappearances_visited three times (1991, 1992 and 1999) since the Group came
into existence in 1980.
It
is well known that Sri Lanka is one of the poorest countries in the world. It
is less widely known that the major part of the Tamil living areas have been
under an Economic embargo for over ten years. According to International NGOs
and the Specialised organisations - health, education, housing, etc are
under-going extreme and severe conditions. No Food, No Medicine, aerial bombing
and shelling on civilian targets continue to kill innocent people on a mass
scale and destroy civilians’ housing including a home for the aged, religious
places and schools. Despite all this, the North East of Sri Lanka has become
the dump yard and testing ground for modern and sophisticated weapons. In recent days, many countries have given
large quantities of arms and ammunition to Sri Lanka, where people live in
extreme poverty.
As
far as Human rights defenders are concerned, from Late Mr. Richard de Zoysa -
Journalist to Mr. Kumar Ponnambalam, assassinations were carried out by SO CALLED UNKNOWN gunmen. Mr.
Ponnambalam - a leading lawyer and a good friend of our organisation was
assassinated on 5 January this year - soon after he returned from attending
conferences and seminars held at various world bodies in Europe, and in other
continents, including the 55th session of the Commission on Human Rights.
According to media reports - the killers of Kumar Ponnambalam are well
protected and the investigations are manipulated and witnesses misled by the
Sri Lankan Police. The President Chandrika Kumaratunga is the Commander-in-Chief
of the security forces in Sri Lanka.
In
a report (E/CN.4/2000/12) submitted to the 56th Session of the Commission on
Human Rights - the High Commissioner for Human Rights sadly recalled that the
former Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial and Summary or Arbitrary
Executions, warned in his 1993 report that the situation in Rwanda had
deteriorated to such an extent as to raise the distinct possibility that
genocidal acts would take place, but this warning issued well in time, went
unheeded. Action was not taken in response to the early warning. The same
Special Rapporteur visited Sri Lanka from 24 August to 5 September 1997 and
submitted a report, (E/CN.4/1998/Add.2), the warnings of which, go unheeded!
We, in TCHR, have repeatedly
mentioned as an early warning, the on-going systematic cultural genocide and
massive and gross violations of fundamental human rights of the Tamil people in
Sri Lanka, in particular the right to life. The failure of early contact and
early action by these august forums will certainly lead to repetition of the
failure of the UN’s preventive techniques regarding genocide, as in Rwanda,
Cambodia and Former Yugoslavia.
Sirs/Mesdames,
it is true that Sri Lanka has become party to the optional protocol in the
recent past. This does not mean that all human rights violations in Sri Lanka
will be addressed through this procedure. The UN VIPs have reminded us that "Naming and Shaming" is one
of the preventive techniques of violations of human rights. Therefore, the
appeals, reports, joint-statements, interventions, written statements, and so
on to the UN Human rights forums are very important. TCHR will continue this arduous task at any cost.
We
would like to inform the delegates and members of the UN Human Rights forums
that the Sri Lankan government’s invitation to certain NGOs and other VIPs to
visit Sri Lanka in the name of human rights missions / seminars etc will not
produce any independent facts on the situation in Sri Lanka nor will such
invitations help to improve the human rights situation! Instead, these visits
will certainly help to strengthen the propaganda of the Sri Lanka mission in
New York, Geneva and other places rather than enabling the fact finders to
present their own observations and analysis.
The last visit of the Working
Group on Disappearances was a typical example of how this visit was used in the
56th session (CHR) by the Sri Lankan government for their propaganda purpose!
As
far as propaganda is concerned, nowadays, Colombo has adopted a policy of
entering gradually and imperceptibly into the arena of high level people from
the International Community. Through these contacts, they feel that propaganda
can be conveyed more powerfully than they can do by themselves!
We
take this opportunity to remind the Honourable members of the Sub-Commission
that the National Commission on Human Rights of Sri Lanka is not an independent
body. It is totally dependent on the Government and they are not allowed to
function as an independent body, by the Security forces. They investigate also
the violations, which took place during the period of the earlier government
until 1994!
The
recent statement by the UN Secretary General, the reports of the Special
rapporteurs and Working groups, visits by Human Rights organisations and personnel
(although the fact finding visits to Sri Lanka fail to get unhindered access to
North East), urgent appeals of the International NGOs and specialised agencies
and finally, the massive import of arms and ammunitions to Sri Lanka have all
proved that the question of human rights in Sri Lanka, has characteristic which
preclude from the claim that it is an "internal affair".
We
kindly appeal to all human rights forums to apply the preventive techniques in
time. We are sure, as no doubt you are too, that "Prevention is better
than cure".
We
urge you, the distinguished Chair and yourselves, distinguished members of the
Sub-Commission, to seriously take our appeal into your kind consideration, to
reflect on it as a call for action to be taken to prevent further gross and
systematic violations and genocidal acts. We believe that the Sub-Commission on
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has the capacity to express the noble
values and aspirations in favour of human rights, therefore we appeal to you
from the depths of our hearts to take action.
Thanking
you,
S. V. Kirubaharan
General
Secretary - TCHR
&n