Efforts to ensure justice for victims have failed, Michelle Bachelet says as she submits her report on Sri Lanka to the UN Human Rights Council.
Twelve years after the end of an armed conflict in Sri Lanka, domestic efforts to ensure justice for victims have failed, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Wednesday.
In presenting her report on Sri Lanka to the UN Human Rights Council, Bachelet said the impact of the conflict on thousands of survivors from all communities was devastating.
“Despite promises made in 2015, the current government has not, as before, succeeded in following genuine or genuine accounting processes,” she said.
“The impact on thousands of survivors, from all communities, is devastating. In addition, the systems, structures, policies and staffing that have caused such major breaches in the past – and have recently been consolidated. “
The decade – long civil war between Sri Lankan security forces and the separatist Tamil Tigers ended nearly 12 years ago in 2009.
The war killed about 100,000 people, including up to 40,000 Tamil civilians killed by Sri Lankan forces in the last attack, an allegation that the government denies.
UN reports have accused Sri Lankan soldiers of stripping hospitals and unwitting air strikes, executing rebels and causing the extinction of thousands of minority Tamils.
Bachelet said the independence of the judiciary and other accountability bodies had been “deeply eroded” following a recent constitutional change and accused the Sri Lankan government of halting the potential for real progress. to end a ban.
“The independence of the judiciary, the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, the National Police Commission and other key bodies are deeply eroded by the recently adopted 20th Constitutional Amendment,” Bachelet said.
“The militarism of key civilian duties continues to undermine democratic rule. Continued failure to implement comprehensive reforms – or vetting of staff – leaves in place security and military officers who have been involved in grave and criminal offenses. “
She said long-term, structural and systemic issues were continuing in Sri Lanka and warned that there were “clear warning signs that patterns of breaches in the past could be repeated”.
A UNHCR report last month said that the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has reversed some of the advances made under previous administrations in protecting human rights in the country.
Awareness of rights activists and dissidents has increased and a situation of self-censorship has emerged, he said.
Rajapaksa won the 2019 general election on a nationalist agenda that included a promise that soldiers would not crush the Tamil rebels to be prosecuted.
Rajapaksa was the chief defense officer when government forces crushed rebel fighters in an armed campaign that ended in May 2009. His brother Mahinda was then president and is currently prime minister.
On Tuesday, Sri Lanka urged the UN Human Rights Council to reject a forthcoming resolution expressing “genuine concern” about the state of “declining” rights in the country.
Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told the council that the resolution was a “political move” and part of an “unprecedented propaganda campaign” against Sri Lanka.
The United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Malawi, Montenegro and Northern Macedonia have submitted a draft resolution for consideration by the 47-member council next month.