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Act fast on accountability issues to avert fragmentation of communities: UN envoy
A top UN official has called for faster progress in Sri Lanka on key promises such as reparations, accountability and a truth and reconciliation commission, saying that failing to implement these could lead to further extremist language and fragmentation of communities.
Jeffrey Feltman :You can at least start by ending the impunity for recent events. Pic by Sameera Weerasekera
“Sri Lanka had 30 years of hell,” said Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs, in an interview. “And one shouldn’t assume that, just because those 30 years ended, there is no risk. There is.” He expressed confidence that politicians and officials he met during his visit from July 19-21 understood those risks and would do their best to ensure they don’t manifest.
At nearly every discussion that Mr Feltman attended, recent attacks on Muslim and Christian minorities came up. Sri Lanka was not immune from a quick escalation of these sorts of events, as have happened elsewhere in the world, he warned. While the Government’s strong statement, including calling for accountability of those responsible, was welcome, “it took a while to get out”.
There has been too much impunity in Sri Lanka for, not just crimes related to the 30-year conflict, but for corruption. Mr Feltman hoped, therefore, that accountability for attacks on Muslims and Christians would be followed up.
“Now you have new cases of attacks against minorities,” he elaborated. “I would hope that the practice of impunity for crimes would end with those. It’s one thing to talk about how you end impunity for past crimes. These are recent events. You can at least start by ending the impunity for recent events.”
Mr Feltman said he received a mixed picture of Sri Lanka, two-and-a-half years after the 2015 presidential election. “Without question, I heard from representatives of Sri Lankan society a sense of disappointment that things hadn’t moved more quickly,” he observed.” And we’ve seen polarised language. We have seen some sad examples of violence against minorities, for example.”
But he also said there was a much greater engagement of Sri Lanka with the world, in comparison with the period before 2015. The country was now expanding its peacekeeping contributions again, while the relationship between various parts of the UN and the Government “are quite constructive and positive”.
And yet, “all of us would have liked to have seen more implementation of the initiatives that were envisioned back in 2015”. These include truth and reconciliation initiatives, and ones related to accountability, reparations and constitutional change. These were all intended to put Sri Lanka on a stable footing again, with harmony among communities, relief for victims and solutions to longstanding grievances.
The risks of not continuing faster with some of these initiatives were addressed. “I know these are difficult,” Mr Feltman said. “There is a lot of very strong emotion associated with much of this. But we truly believe that Sri Lanka has the opportunity to be a model of a post-conflict country with harmonious relations between communities, where longstanding grievances have been addressed, where victims feel that they have had a sense of relief.”
Accountability was essential to addressing the aftermath of the 30-year conflict, he continued. “But that’s also extremely difficult,” he said. “It’s difficult in all conflict countries. And it’s understandable why that is. At the same time, it’s also clear that countries that haven’t dealt with the accountability question have a much higher risk of falling back into conflict because there’s still a sense of grievance, a sense of injustice that hasn’t been addressed.”
Mr Feltman said they believed strongly that the current Prevention of Terrorism Act needed to be replaced. There has been considerable work done on a new Counter Terrorism Act. The Government has taken suggestions from experts about how to make sure the law serves the purpose of protecting Sri Lanka from terrorism while guaranteeing the rights of individuals. “But we also believe that more can be done to see, before the law is finished, that it truly does conform to best practices internationally, that it truly does provide the type of judicial protection for Sri Lankan individuals,” he said.
The importance of communication was emphasised. “In our view, there is room for improvement in how the government talks about these issues to the people of Sri Lanka, themselves,” Mr Feltman explained. “Again, a quicker message denouncing hate speech, denouncing extremist rhetoric, perhaps, could have prevented the actual attacks… I don’t know. A full explanation of what the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) really means would be helpful, and transparency over what is being done in terms of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think that there’s great scope for more communication between the Government and the citizens.”
Mr Feltman said he was pleased to have been in Sri Lanka on the week the President signed the official gazette for the OMP. He said he hoped every community will welcome it because “every community has missing persons”.
“But Office of Missing Persons is not yet operational, clearly,” he continued, calling for a selection process to produce credible, competent commissioners, and a budget. The Government meanwhile, needed to be both behind the OMP, and allow it to be independent.