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Link to UNCHR
(E/CN.4/2001/NGO/65)
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Fifty-seventh Session
Item 11 (b) of the Provisional Agenda
CIVIL
AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
THE
QUESTION OF DISAPPEARANCES AND SUMMARY EXECUTIONS
Written
statement submitted by the Asian Legal Resource Centre,
a
non-governmental organisation with general consultative status
Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances in Sri
Lanka
1.
Sri Lanka's disappearance cases are an outstanding issue of
gross human rights abuse. The Government of Sri Lanka has clearly
ignored international efforts to address this concern. The time
has come for the establishment of an international tribunal or
similar body to press the matter.
2.
The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances made
the following recommendations to the Government of Sri Lanka in
its 21 December 1999 report (E/CN.4/2000/64/Add.1):
(a) The
Government should establish an independent body with the task of
investigating all cases of disappearance which occurred since
1995 and identifying the perpetrators;
(b) The
Government should speed up its efforts to bring the perpetrators
of enforced disappearances, whether committed under the former or
the present Government, to justice. The Attorney-General or
another independent authority should be empowered to investigate
and indict suspected perpetrators of enforced disappearances
irrespective of the out-come of investigations by the police;
(c) The act
of enforced disappearance should be made an independent offence
under the criminal law of Sri Lanka punishable by appropriate
penalties as stipulated in article 4 of the United Nations
Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance;
(d) The
Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Emergency Regulations
currently in force should be abolished or otherwise brought into
line with internationally accepted standards of personal liberty,
due process of law and humane treatment of prisoners;
(e) Any
person deprived of liberty should be held only in an officially
recognized place of detention as stipulated in article 10 (1) of
the Declaration. All unofficial places of detention, in
particular those established by paramilitary organizations
fighting alongside the Security Forces, such as PLOTE and TELO,
should immediately be dissolved;
(f) The
Government should set up a central register of detainees as
provided for in article 10 (3) of the Declaration. Since the
Human Rights Commission needs to be informed immediately of every
arrest and detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and
the Emergency Regulations, such a central computerized register
of detainees might be established at its headquarters. Such a
solution would, however, require a substantial increase in the
powers and resources of the Commission;
(g) All
families of disappeared persons should receive the same amount of
compensation. The differentiation between public civil servants
and others seems discriminatory and should, therefore, be
abolished. Compensation should not be made dependent on the
confirmation as “proven” by a Commission of Inquiry. In
addition to these compensations, the families of disappeared
persons should be supported, according to their needs, by other
means, such as low interest loan schemes or scholarships for the
children;
(h) The procedure for issuing death
certificates in cases of disappearances should be applied in an
equal and non-discriminatory manner to all families;
(i) The
prohibition of enforced disappearance should be included as a
fundamental right in the Constitution of Sri Lanka to which the
remedy of a direct human rights complaint to the Supreme Court
under article 13 of the Constitution is applied irrespective of
the fact whether the disappeared person is presumed to be alive
or dead;
(j) The
Government should instruct the special unit in REPPIA to respond
to the cases submitted by the Working Group on a case-by-case
basis, in order to enable the Working Group to solve the cases
which were reportedly clarified.
3.
To date, these recommendations have been completely ignored by
the government. The Asian Legal Resource Centre considers that
among them the most important recommendation is the first, that
the government should establish an independent body to
investigate all disappearances since 1995. Besides the huge
numbers of disappearances in the late eighties, estimated by
non-government organisations at around 60,000, the Sri Lankan
National Human Rights Commission received 2130 new complaints of
disappearances between April 1997 and March 1999 alone, out of
which only 767 cases have been traced. Government-appointed
commissions into disappearances have found that these crimes have
been committed with full knowledge, planning and encouragement of
the government. The excuse often given by the authorities, that
they lack sufficient evidence to prosecute, is based on
deliberate avoidance of criminal investigations into these cases.
Their way to avoid prosecutions is to avoid investigations. The
Asian Legal Resource Centre urges the Commission to pursue the
first recommendation above all others, until it is implemented.
4.
The Asian Legal Resource Centre has already called upon the
Commission and international community to encourage the
Government of Sri Lanka to establish an independent commission
with foreign backing and participants, empowered to investigate
and conduct trials on all disappearances (E/CN.4/2000/NGO/63,
paragraphs 8 and 9). The Asian Legal Resource Centre has also
orally called upon the Commission to facilitate the establishment
of an international tribunal as the best alternative. The
government's abject failure to adopt remedial measures, its
role in the causing of these disappearances and the sheer volume
of abuse amount in total to a crime against humanity deserving
nothing less than a concerted international effort towards its
resolution.
5.
With a view to establishing an international tribunal or similar
body, the Commission must first review the Government of Sri
Lanka's performance on disappearances. The Asian Legal
Resource Centre recommends a Special Rapporteur be appointed with
a view to this end. Unless the Commission vigorously pursues
remedies for disappearances in Sri Lanka through specific ongoing
measures, the perpetrators of these crimes will enjoy impunity
and continue to work in the nation's law enforcement
agencies.
Posted on 2001-01-30
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