Unfortunate American approach to Human Rights in Sri Lanka

Professor Rajiva Wijesinha

A couple of days back I was asked by the BBC Sinhala Service in London to comment on the 2010 Human Rights Report: Sri Lanka issued by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour of the American State Department. I had come across these reports previously, when I was Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, and I assume that, with there being lack of clarity about administrative responsibility now for Human Rights, the BBC thought they might as well ask me about the issue now as well.

Professor RAJIVA WIJESINHA

They gave me very little notice, and suggested it would be enough if I just glanced through the synopsis with which the report began, but as it happened I was able to look through some of the rest. This was a good thing, because I discovered a mismatch between the introduction and the rest of the report. The former engaged in generalizations that were sharply critical, and it was the introduction alone that predictably was used in The Sunday Leader. The rest of the report was more circumspect, and did not bear out the harsh generalizations.

Human rights violations

In fact, since one should try to be positive, I believe some of the points made should be looked at carefully by the Sri Lankan government. In particular, the few cases for which details are given should be addressed. Several names are mentioned in Part a) of the first section of the report. These, significantly, give the lie to a generalization in the introduction, that ‘a disproportionate number of victims of human rights violations were Tamils’.

I am sorry about this, because it contributes to the confrontational approach that still bedevils work to improve the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka.

Professional aspects

The government recognizes that there are problems, and that is why we have worked on a Human Rights Action Plan, which I hope will be soon placed before Cabinet. When there was a Ministry, we were able to concentrate on this, but unfortunately, with the abolition of a dedicated Ministry, there was some uncertainty about where responsibility for all this lay. I was myself under the impression that the Ministry of External Affairs would be in charge, and certainly some of the staff who had worked with us were transferred there, but it rapidly became clear that this was not appropriate. Indeed the Secretary to the Ministry told me that they were not equipped to cope with internal matters.

Fortunately, just when I was beginning to despair, the Attorney General, despite the massive amount of other work he has to do, took the matter up and since then we have moved reasonably swiftly, though less so than I would have liked. The lack of a dedicated Ministry has also led to slowness with regard to a couple of things we pushed assiduously, namely police training and more effective monitoring with regard to women and children. I should add that, in this regard, we had excellent cooperation from the police personnel deputed to serve on the Committee I chaired. They indeed pointed out the need for better training in professional aspects as well as in Human Rights awareness.

Psycho-social support

The police have also accepted fully the need to establish Women’s and Children’s Desks in all stations, with particular attention to the North and East, but unfortunately the system we had envisaged, of close cooperation with government and other agencies of psycho-social support, has not materialized.

Recently, at the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on National Languages and Social Integration, I drew attention to statistics of Probation Officers, Women and Early Child Development Officers and Counsellors in the North, pointing out how many gaps there were, and suggested that there should be better coordination. I hope that the Ministry will be able, as suggested, to undertake this task.

All this is indicative of the fact that we believe Human Rights problems should be approached in a holistic fashion, with as much emphasis on reducing recurrence in the future as on providing remedies.

Unfortunately the American report seems rather to be pursuing a political agenda, with an effort to denigrate the present government rather than deal seriously with Human Rights issues. This is a pity, because I believe American cooperation will help us to improve the situation here, and I believe there are several persons in the American government, and even in the State Department, who would like to help. Once again however, as with the person who slipped in something about using rape as a weapon of war into a speech by Hillary Clinton, the confrontationists seem to have won.

Political purposes

There can be no other reason for the third sentence in the report being ‘The government is dominated by the President’s family; two of the President’s brothers hold key executive branch posts as Defence Secretary and Minister of Economic Development, while a third brother is the Speaker of Parliament’. This is not mentioned elsewhere in the report, which makes it clear that this is nothing to do with Human Rights problems. It is also sad that the writer does not mention that two brothers were elected to Parliament, and that a Secretary in Sri Lanka is an administrative position whereas a Minister forms part of the Executive (but has to be an elected Member of Parliament, unlike in the United States).

The second and last paragraph of the introduction is a wholesale indictment of Sri Lanka, and seems designed to serve a political purpose, given the more balanced picture presented in the report as a whole. The technique resembles that employed by Human Rights Watch nearly four years ago, when they issued a press release that was belied by the actual report they had put together: both HRW and the State Department know very well that most people read only the introduction, and that this will be used for political purposes by those opposed to the Sri Lankan government.

The manner in which the harsher statements of the report are presented suggests where America thinks its interests in Sri Lanka lie. It says ‘Independent observers generally characterized the Presidential and Parliamentary elections as problematic’, and again ‘Election law violations and government influence created doubts about the fairness of both the Presidential and the Parliamentary elections’, without noting that even the most hostile of independent observers did not suggest’ that the results did not represent the democratic will of the people.

It says ‘Many independent observers cited a continued climate of fear among minority populations’ without noting the relief amongst most Sri Lankans, including minorities, at the destruction of the LTTE - nor did it mention the number of minority parties that support the government.

The final lines of the introduction suggest the determination, like the wolf with the lamb, to gobble up a victim regardless of what it did or said - ‘Violence and discrimination against women were problems, as were abuse of children and trafficking in persons. Discrimination against persons with disabilities, persons with HIV/AIDS, and the ethnic Tamil minority continued, and a disproportionate number of victims of human rights violations were Tamils.

Discrimination and violence against persons based on their sexual orientation were problems.

Trafficking in persons, limits on workers’ rights, and child labour remained problems, although the parliament implemented new regulations on child labour at the end of the year.’

All this gossip and prejudice is unfortunate because, whereas I think we should be working together with the United States, as well as other countries, to improve our situation, this report will be grist to the mill of those who dislike the United States. I hope later to go more deeply into the negative aspects of the report, whilst noting areas in which we should institutionalize mechanisms to improve our situation.

Meanwhile I can only hope that the report was not intended primarily to provoke, in marked contrast for instance to the manner in which the State Department treated a country like Uzbekistan when it was thought to be a faithful ally of the United States as well as Israel.

Assuming even a modicum of understanding of the Sri Lankan situation, one would be surprised at this performance now. But I have long realized that, even where such understanding exists, it can be trumped by parochial considerations.