by Kalyananda Tiranagama
Executive Director
Lawyers for Human Rights and Development
(First part of this article appeared in The Island of 09 June 2023)

The election of members for the next Human Rights Council was due to be held in May 2008. Sri Lanka was seeking re-election to the Council. A group of foreign-funded, pro-LTTE, anti-national NGOs and LGBTQ groups commenced, months before the elections, making preparations to carry on a sinister campaign to prevent Sri Lanka’s re-election to the Council. UN Human Rights Council was due to review Sri Lanka’s human rights situation in May 2008.

This review of Sri Lanka’s human rights situation was done on the basis of reports presented by the Government of Sri Lanka, UN representatives and national and international human rights NGOs. January 14, 2008 was the deadline for NGOs to send their reports to the Council. As the first step, these foreign-funded NGOs made an appeal to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, to extend the deadline for submission of NGO report till February 8, 2008. They conducted a series of meetings and prepared a report titled Joint Civil Society Report for Universal Periodic Review of Sri Lanka – May 2008 and presented it to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the name of 39 organizations in Sri Lanka.

This Report had deliberately ignored the violations of human rights committed by the LTTE, including the forcible conscription of children, stating that it had focused on the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) as it was a member of the Human Rights Council and subject to the Universal Periodic Review process and it stated that the human rights situation in Sri Lanka had deteriorated since the country became a member of the Human Rights Council in 2006.

This Report was full of lies and distortions intended to tarnish the image of the country. Some of the blatant lies, fabrications and distortions mentioned in this Joint Civil Society Report are mentioned below:

Blatant Lies ·

The establishment of semi-legal vigilante units (so-called Civil Defence Units) terrorizes the civilian population throughout the country.

· What a blatant lie this statement is! Civil Defence Force consisting of Gramarakshakas was established to protect the villages and the people in the North and the East in the villages which were vulnerable to terrorist attacks. They were not semi-legal vigilante units. Vigilante groups like Black Cats and Yellow Cats operated during the UNP Rule, from 1988 – 1991. Civil Defence Force was a force officially created by the Government of Sri Lanka and led by Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera, former Deputy Chief of the Sri Lanka Navy. Where have they terrorized civilian population? Can these NGOs cite a single incident where the Civil Defence Units have terrorized civilian population?

· Torture and cruel and inhuman treatment is endemic across police stations and detention centres.

· This statement was also highly exaggerated and distorted. There was no doubt that incidents of torture were still reported against some Police Officers and there were complaints of assaults and harassment by the Police. But could one say that torture and cruel and inhuman treatment was endemic across police stations and detention centres in Sri Lanka at that time? About three decades back – during the period from 1989 – 1991 – there was a time when torture was endemic across police stations. The situation had improved much since then.

· In 1994 Torture Act was enacted making torture a criminal offence punishable with a mandatory jail sentence of seven years. In 2000 a special unit was established in the Attorney General’s Department to prosecute perpetrators of torture and since then a large number of Police Officers have been indicted in the High Courts in different areas in the country for torture and some of them were convicted and sent to jail. The Attorney General did not appear for the Police or Army Officers in Fundamental Rights Applications before the Supreme Court where there were allegations of torture. The Supreme Court has continuously taken a very serious view of torture and ordered the State and the individual police officers who were found to be responsible for torture to pay compensation to victims. The policy of zero tolerance of torture, introduced by Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy as the Chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRC), was continuously being followed by the HRC. The number of complaints of torture coming before the Supreme Court and the HRC had gradually decreased over the years.

· Flagrant violations of International humanitarian law including targeting of civilians, attacks on places of worship, hospitals and schools, and forced resettlement of IDPs.

· This statement was also a blatant lie. This is a Report submitted in February 2008, not after the end of the war in May, 2009. Could they cite a single incident where the GOSL has targeted civilians? They could not. There was not a single incident where the security forces have targeted civilians.

· Were there any incidents where the security forces had attacked places of worship, hospitals and schools? No. There wasn’t any. This statement is also a deliberate lie.

· There were more than a dozen incidents where the LTTE terrorists had attacked civilian targets, killing hundreds of helpless children, women and men and injuring thousands of people. LTTE had attacked several Catholic Churches in Mannar and killed a Hindu priest at Batticaloa and a Buddhist monk at Trincomalee during that period. They used Vakarai Hospital as its base for attacking security forces. When this Report talked of “targeting of civilians, attacks on places of worship, hospitals and schools” without naming the real perpetrator of these crimes – the LTTE – it has made a subtle attempt to put all these crimes committed by the LTTE to the account of the Government of Sri Lanka.

· The Report alleged that there was forced resettlement of IDPs. It is no secret that several NGOs, INGOs and UN Agencies operating in the East at that time tried to obstruct the resettlement of displaced people. They tried to dissuade people from leaving their IDP camps. They wished the IDPs to remain in IDP camps undergoing all sorts of difficulties so that they could continue with their welfare work in IDP camps and carry on their international campaign against Sri Lanka clamouring about displacement of hundreds of thousands of people by war, comparing Sri Lanka’s situation with that of Somalia.

· Women on the plantations also face forced sterilization, promoted in some cases by the management.

· This was also a diabolical lie. There was no forced sterilisation of women anywhere in the country. There had never been. There were two powerful political parties and trade unions looking after the interests of plantation workers in Sri Lanka – the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, led by Mr. Arumugam Thondamon, and the Up-Country People’s Front, led by Mr. P. Chandrasekeran. There were a large number of NGOs working among the plantation workers. There was a Plantation Trust. If there was any attempt at forced sterilization of plantation women, these organizations would not have remained silent.

· This was a sinister attempt made by these NGOs that drafted this Report to tarnish the image of the country and the government of Sri Lanka by spreading the lie that a repressive Sinhala government was forcibly sterilizing Tamil women in the plantation areas, in violation of their human rights and committing genocide.

· Acts of violence against women are growing, as are restrictions on women’s freedom of choice on a range of issues, ranging from form of dress and choice of marriage partner.

· This statement that ‘Acts of violence against women are growing’ was also contrary to facts. Domestic violence is a problem affecting not only our society, but all societies including the West. After a long consultation process with women’s organizations in the country, the Government enacted Domestic Violence Act in 2003 to deal with the problem of domestic violence. Any woman or child affected by domestic violence could obtain a protection order on application to a Magistrate’s Court. The Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Empowerment had taken a special interest in the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act. There were several organizations like the Legal Aid Commission and the Women in Need (WIN) providing counselling and legal support services to women and children affected by domestic violence. In 36 Police Divisions, there were separate Women and Children Units, manned by women Police Officers, with special training to handle cases of violence against women and children.

· Were there any restrictions on women’s freedom of choice of form of dress or choice of marriage partner in Sri Lanka, as claimed by these NGOs? Certainly not. It was a diabolical attempt made to give a gloomy picture of Sri Lanka, to depict Sri Lanka as a country like Afghanistan under a fundamentalist rule.

· LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) individuals are denied access to health services, education and employment and the ability to participate in social and public life. Targeting and persecution of LGBT persons have led to several individuals leaving the country to seek asylum elsewhere.

· Was there an iota of truth in this statement? Were Lesbians and Gays denied access to health services in hospitals in Sri Lanka? Were they denied admission to hospitals, government or private, when they fall sick? Were they or their children denied admission to schools, universities or other institutions of higher education, due to the fact that they are lesbians or gays? Were they denied employment? Was there a requirement, legal or otherwise, to disclose whether a person is a homosexual? Were there any restrictions on LGBT persons’ participation in social and public life? Don’t they have voting rights? Were they not allowed to contest elections? It is a well-known fact that a number of leading politicians in this country were/are homo-sexuals or persons who maintained homo-sexual relationships.

· Since the introduction of the Penal Code by the British rulers in 1863, homo-sexual conduct remained a criminal offence in Sri Lanka. Till 1995 only gay relationships or homo-sexual conduct between men was an offence. When the Penal Code was amended in 1995, ensuring gender equality, lesbian relationship was also made a criminal offence. Whether homo-sexual conduct is criminalized or not, Asian culture considers homo-sexuality as a deviation of the normal human sexual conduct.

· As was claimed in this Report, there was no targeting and persecution of LGBT persons in Sri Lanka. No police officer was going to peep into their bedrooms. Only thing they could not promote, openly display or exhibit their conduct. There was no reason for them to leave Sri Lanka and seek asylum elsewhere unless they wished to contract same sex marriages, which they could not do in Sri Lanka.

· Equal Ground, an NGO campaigning for recognition of LGBT rights and decriminalization of homo-sexuality, was also among the NGOs involved in this campaign.

Any person who is conversant with the situation of this country knows that most of these assertions were blatant lies, half-truths, distortions and fabrications concocted by some of the leaders of these foreign funded NGOs who were hell-bent on serving the agendas of their foreign masters of getting this country opened for foreign intervention.

As the next step of their anti-Sri Lanka campaign, in April 2008, these NGOs had addressed a letter, containing packs of lies and fabrications, to the Member States of the UN General Assembly seeking their support to prevent the re-election of Sri Lanka to the Human Rights Council. In this letter, these NGOs have stated:

“We, the undersigned civil society organizations are gravely concerned by the widening human rights crisis and growing culture of impunity that cripples our country….

” … It is with deep sadness and regret that we have now decided to make this appeal to the members of the United Nations General Assembly to oppose the re-election of Sri Lanka to the Council in 2008…. During Sri Lanka’s two years tenure in the UN Human Rights Council, the human rights situation has worsened. The Government’s unwillingness to take effective measures to address and prevent violations has made clear its inability to fulfill its pledges….

“We appeal to you to consider withholding support for Sri Lanka’s re-election this year. By doing so, your government will send a strong message to the Government of Sri Lanka that it must reform its practices if it wants to continue as an equal partner in international institutions such as the UN ….

“To re-elect Sri Lanka to the Human Rights Council in the present circumstances would amount to support for the undemocratic practices that have become part of our everyday lives. Your rejection of Sri Lanka’s bid for re-election to the Human Rights Council will reaffirm the faith that Sri Lanka civil society has placed in the international community, and could act as a powerful impetus for reforms in the country.” A Sinhala translation of this letter appeared in the Ravaya newspaper of 18. 05. 2008.