Sri Lanka risks isolation over human rights

By Staff

Published: Wednesday, June 13, 2007, 18:07 [IST]

Colombo, June 13: Tamils are deported, abductions and killings are blamed on state security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels, and aid groups and truce monitors say they are obstructed from doing their jobs.

As Sri Lanka's civil war escalates, increasing its problems and need for international help, Sri Lanka risks isolation over human rights, diplomats and analysts say.

Both Britain and the United States have suspended some aid to Sri Lanka this year citing rights abuse concerns, and the World Food Programme slapped conditions on food aid to avoid war refugees being resettled against their will.

But although the Tigers are blamed for multiple attacks that have killed hundreds in recent months, they are widely listed as a banned terrorist group while the government must be seen to be whiter than white.

''It's very, very important that Sri Lanka is seen to have a human rights record which is clean,'' British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said after meeting President Mahinda Rajapaksa this week.

''All of us want to see Sri Lanka not isolated but drawn in as part of the community of nations,'' he added.

A Supreme Court order following the eviction of nearly 400 Tamils last week deemed not to have valid reasons to be in the capital forced an embarrassing U-turn by authorities, who had argued the evictions were voluntary.

''There's no possible way to defend or rationalise that behaviour,'' Howells said.

''The abductions have got to cease, the human rights abuses have got to cease... The kind of tactics that were used to clear Tamil people out of Colombo suburbs must never happen again.'' Rights groups have reported hundreds of abductions and disappearances blamed on one side or the other since the war, which has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983, resumed last year.

President Rajapaksa argues many of those reports are fake and designed to discredit his government, and denies the security forces are involved.

''The government is stepping completely out of line with what the international community is expecting of it in dealing with the problem of terrorism in Colombo,'' said Jehan Perera of non-partisan advocacy group the National Peace Council.

''The government is isolating itself internationally and within Sri Lanka.'' The government disagrees, accusing the international community of bullying it.

Double Standards

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president's brother, says Western powers apply double standards when it comes to rights violations, and expelling Tamils from the capital was the best plan in the face of attacks by suspected Tiger fighters.

''This is discrimination and bullying by the international community,'' Rajapaksa told Reuters and the BBC in an interview at his heavily guarded office in the capital Colombo yesterday.

''Without understanding the problem, they are trying to bully us, and we won't be isolated. We have all the SAARC (South Asian) countries, the Asian countries,'' he added.

''Britain or Western countries, EU countries, they can do whatever. We don't depend on them.'' He complained embassy staff were misinforming their governments and international media were part of the problem, reporting negative stories that work against the state and not giving enough air time to the views of small nations.

''We have to defend ourselves. You can't risk the country...,'' Rajapaksa said. ''I'm talking about terrorists. Anything is fair.

''When the US does operations, they say covert operations. When something is (done) in Sri Lanka, they call it abductions,'' he added. ''This is playing with the words.'' He said Howells was ''completely misinformed''.

The government received another blow this week when a panel of international experts appointed by the president said a probe into a series of abuses blamed on the security forces and Tigers failed to meet international standards and was flawed.

The panel's harsh review came against a backdrop of rights violations, assassinations and heavy fighting between state forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The violence has killed an estimated 4,500 people since last year alone.

Diplomats say Sri Lanka is also hurt by often contradictory statements ministers and senior officials make to local and international audiences, in a complex political arena that includes hardline Marxists and activist Buddhist monks.

''At a certain point in time, you give up on Sri Lanka,'' said one foreign ambassador based in Colombo, declining to be named.

''There are so many mixed messages that you get a totally blurred vision of their foreign policy.'' ''Officials constantly contradict one another to score domestic points. This is the danger of having one message for your domestic audience and one for the international community. That's exactly what isolates them.''

Reuters

Sri Lanka risks isolation over human rights

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