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Lanka has potential to be a global example: UN envoy
View(s):If handled well, Sri Lanka’s case has the potential to be a regional and global example of how sustainable peace ought to be achieved, says Pablo de Greiff, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, at the end of his recent visit to Sri Lanka.
Mr. de Greiff also says that decisions Sri Lankans have taken of late signal an end to the country’s “temporary leave from an international rights architecture it contributed to construct”. They open the possibility of important progress in the protection of rights of all citizens. And they reflect the view that “a military victory does not by far settle all questions about how people can live together”.
However, Mr. de Greiff’s states, most of the work necessary to redress violations and abuses is still to be done. While long-term comprehensive policies are designed with the appropriate consultations, it is urgent to guarantee the cessation of all violations, and to implement victim-assistance programmes.
Mr. de Greiff was in Sri Lanka from March 30 to April 3. He met a range of officials and travelled to the North and East, including Batticaloa, Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya. He released his observations yesterday.
There has been an overuse of commissions of inquiry in Sri Lanka, leading to “a confidence gap”, Mr. de Greiff says. Some produced useful reports, including wide-ranging recommendations. Others released reports that were never made public.
“Failed, inadequate or uneven implementation of their recommendations has been a common feature,” he observes. They have not contributed towards “securing the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence, or to making State institutions more trustworthy in the eyes of citizens”. Instead, they have engendered mistrust.
Mr. de Greiff warns against reproducing this approach. He stresses that there are no shortcuts to reconciliation. “There are violations that we cannot simply expect others to forget,” he reflects. “Redressing those violations is not a matter of personal recollection, but of fundamental, basic rights.”
This needs a State policy, rather than a Government one that might be abrogated once new authorities were in place. Mr. de Greiff also points out that the history of Sri Lanka includes rights violations and rights holders that both precede and that go beyond the direct participants in the conflict.
“A comprehensive redress policy cannot target, either for benefits or for responsibilities, one community alone,” he cautions. “The initiatives must track violations wherever they occurred and independently of the identity or affiliation of the victims or the perpetrators. Only this can serve to strengthen the rights of all Sri Lankan citizens.”
The Special Rapporteur called for citizens to be involved in drafting solutions. “Citizens cannot be simply presented with solutions in the design of which they were given no role,” he said. He pointed out that there were reportedly close to 9,000 women-headed households as a consequence of the conflict.
It was, therefore, imperative to “design and implement measures of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence in a way that facilitates both the effective and informed participation of women, and to guarantee that the outcomes promote and protect their rights”. Likewise, special attention should be paid to the situation of affected children, adolescents, and the disabled.
Among immediate actions to be taken, Mr. de Greiff calls for a clarifying of the fate of the disappeared, saying “the suffering which follows from these cases generates rights violations on their own”. The other measures are refraining from arbitrary detentions; addressing land issues; and putting an immediate end to continuing forms of harassment, violence and unjustified surveillance of civil society and victims
“To conclude,” he said, “in rejoining the international community of rights, Sri Lanka will find more than willing partners.”