Sri Lanka - Human Rights

The Sri Lankan government is currently waging outright war against the Tamil population in the north. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been up-rooted due to massive bombardment in the Vanni (northern Sri Lanka). Unable to escape to the south due to the military incursion, they flee ever further north. Food is scarce, and medicines, even more so. Killings are reported to be a daily occurrence.

Human rights abuses have been a serious problem in Sri Lanka for several years now. Disappearances, torture, and extra-judicial killings have people, especially in Tamil areas, living in a constant state of fear. In 2006 and 2007, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances recorded more new “disappearance” cases from Sri Lanka than from any other country in the world. Those raising concerns about abuses risk being labeled subversive and harassed or worse.

Civil Society Organizations have been pressing for an independent monitoring presence from the UN Commission on Human Rights. With the end of the cease-fire, the Norwegian-led monitoring mission left the country. Despite international pressure, the Sri Lankan government has refused to agree to an independent UN presence. Recently, even UN relief and refugee agancies were forced to leave the north due to the intensive shelling by government forces.

With the main highway to the Tamil north cut off by government forces since last year, many essential supplies have been scarce for some time in the northeast. Hundreds of students in Tamil areas have disappeared, abducted by the LTTE insurgency or ‘disappeared’ by government forces. A claymore bomb blast on January 29, 2008 near the Madhu Shrine in northwestern Sri Lanka, killed or maimed scores of school children and their teachers as they rode by in a bus. The Madhu Shrine itself - for centuries, respected as a zone of peace - was over-run in the Spring of 2008 by government forces. The church property was damaged by shelling, and church officials were forced to leave for several weeks. Efforts to restore a peace zone have been ignored.

Oblates have been documenting disappearances - particularly of students. The disappearance of Fr. Jim Brown, a diocesan Catholic priest feared killed three years ago, has not yet been solved.

Learn More …

Madhu Shrine:

• SRI LANKA: Appeal to protect the shrine of our lady of Madhu from all military presence and operations April 1, 2008 (Download pdf)

Human Rights Reports:

• Universal Periodic Review of Sri Lanka
• Human Rights Watch’s Submission to the Human Rights Council April 7, 2008
• Sri Lanka: ‘Disappearances’ by Security Forces a National Crisis:International Human Rights Monitoring Mission Urgently Needed (New York, March 6, 2008)
• Recurring Nightmare; State Responsibility for “Disappearances” and Abductions in Sri Lanka
• Joint Civil Society Report for Universal Periodic Review of Sri Lanka
  February 2008 (Download PDF)
• Student Community in North & East Terrified (Detailed documentation of student disappearances, killings and harassment from Rev. Fr. J. J. Bernard OMI, Director, Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, Jaffna) (Download PDF)
• For recent Fact Finding Reports, please visit the Centre for Policy Alternatives

Of Interest …

• Human Rights Watch argues that a United Nations Human Rights monitoring presence is needed in Sri Lanka: Truce End Shows Need for UN Monitors
• “How a UN human rights presence can help human rights in Sri Lanka” - An examination of this issue offered by the Human Rights Correspondance School, A project of the Asian HR Commission

Links …

• Human Rights Watch
• Center for Policy Alternatives

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