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Sri Lanka Queries Human Rights Watch Report's Selective Targeting

SECRETARY GENERAL
Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process


Mr. Brad Adams, 7th August 2007
Asia Division Director,
Human rights Watch,
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor,
New York,
NY 10118-3299

Dear Mr. Adams,

I read with some sadness your release re: the Human Rights Report on Sri Lanka that was issued yesterday. I had been pleased to meet Ms. Hogg while she was here, and accepted her comments that her sole interest was Human Rights. In that context, she mentioned that she and Human Rights Watch had been unequivocal in their condemnation of violations of Human Rights by the LTTE. Her point was that Human Rights violations by the government too should be condemned, and that it was incumbent on a government to improve it's record, both points on which I could of course agree.

However, what I find in your release is a repetition of the unequivocal criticism of the current Sri Lankan government, that is grist to the mill of not only the LTTE but also others in Sri Lanka who deplore the results of democratic elections and hope instead that agencies like yours will help them to disrupt the government.

Regrettably, the wording of the release makes clear the careful targeting of your criticism. Your second para refers to a 'dramatic increase in abuses by government forces over the past 18 months' which is obviously designed to suggest that the Rajapakse government has misbehaved from the time it was elected.

This statement is however contradicted, not only by the bulk of the report, but even by your first para which identifies abuses by the Sri Lankan government since the resumption of major hostilities with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year. Five paragraphs later you write that 'major hostilities resumed in mid-2006' which is correct, though you fail to note the relentless attacks by the LTTE on government forces, culminating in near simultaneous attacks on Mutur in the Eastern Province and Muhumalai in the North just over a year ago. "Five paragraphs later you write that 'major hostilities resumed in mid-2006' which is correct, though you fail to note the relentless attacks by the LTTE on government forces, culminating in near simultaneous attacks on Mutur in the Eastern Province and Muhumalai in the North just over a year ago ".

 

Your next paragraph, the seventh, talks about indiscriminate attacks which led to displacement, after which 'Government authorities have forced some to return to areas that remain insecure'. The selectivity of the release is most depressing. As you know, the report mentions that, after the LTTE resumed hostilities, it also tried and successfully prevented people from leaving affected areas. When there was a lull in March the government did recommence resettlement. At that stage there were allegations of forced returns, which your report attributes to a single interview on May 23rd with a single 'humanitarian worker'. "You also talk of something quite different sourced to a UNHCR story about 'heavy pressure', but your press release deliberately omits the current situation, where the UNHCR spokesperson said that 'Our staff monitoring the situation on the ground say the majority of people are eager to return home, the returns are voluntary and in line with international......

 

You also talk of something quite different sourced to a UNHCR story about 'heavy pressure', but your press release deliberately omits the current situation, where the UNHCR spokesperson said that 'Our staff monitoring the situation on the ground say the majority of people are eager to return home, the returns are voluntary and in line with international protection standards … UNHCR will continue to monitor the returns and report directly to the government on any problems regarding the voluntariness and any deviation from the civilian characteristics of the move'. (p 32)

You then have a paragraph in which you challenge the UNHCR position, but without a single reference or source cited for your allegations. Then you once again quote UNHCR saying 'Our staff have made several assessment missions and generally have seen that conditions are conducive for return….Most of the returnees seem happy to be home but had received little prior information about the conditions in the areas of return.'

I have dealt at length with these points, but there are several more I could fault, notably in the release you have so purposefully released, as well as in the report itself. I will refrain from doing so at present, because I hope you will respond and let me know why I should continue, as I had hoped to do when I met Ms. Hogg, to work together with your organization to improve the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka. I can and should work together with organizations that are concerned with human beings, but not with those who have an agenda of their own which eschews objectivity.

Please pass on my regards to Ms. Hogg, and my hopes that, despite her energetic escapades whilst she was here, the baby is safe and well.

Yours sincerely

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha
Secretary General
Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process

Return to War - Human Rights Under Siege
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/srilanka0807/srilanka0807web.pdf

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