Urge Congress to hold Sri Lanka accountable for human rights abuses
January 11, 2008
HELP Advocates Sri Lanka, an advocacy group committed to promoting Human Rights, Equality and Lasting Peace, wishes to join the international community in expressing profound concern and disappointment over the government of Sri Lanka’s recent decision to formally withdraw from the ceasefire agreement it signed with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2002.
The U.S. State Department, the United Nations, and the internationally respected rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group, have been calling upon the Sri Lankan government to allow a UN human rights monitoring mission on the island amidst concerns over extensive human rights abuses. HELP Advocates Sri Lanka strongly endorses UN monitors and further U.S. engagement in the face of dire humanitarian and human rights crises, evidenced by:
- Over half a million displaced people suffering effects of intensifying conflict (Amnesty International);
- Half a million people in Jaffna peninsula cut off from the rest of the island with insufficient food and medicine for more than one year (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch joint report, 12/8/2007)
- 1,212 people disappeared or killed in the first eight months of 2007 (UN);
- Well over 5,000 people killed since 2005 in near-daily air strikes, land and sea clashes and ambushes (Reuters, 1/2008);
- 43 aid workers killed in the past two years, including three Red Cross workers; 14 aid workers missing (AFP, 9/4/070
- Ongoing recruitment and abductions of children, direct attacks against civilians and impeded access to humanitarian actors (UN SC report on children and armed conflict 12/21/07)
- Indiscriminate arrests of more than 2,000 Tamil civilians in November (AP, 12/4/2007);
- Third most dangerous place in the world for journalists (Press Emblem Campaign, 12/17/07)
The conflict, which has killed around 70,000 mostly Tamil civilians since 1983, escalated dramatically in 2007 in spite of the standing ceasefire. The government’s withdrawal from the ceasefire and subsequent dismissal of Nordic ceasefire monitors is sure to lead to significantly more bloodshed and human suffering in 2008, adding new urgency to the need for UN human rights monitors and additional U.S. engagement.
HELP Advocates Sri Lanka calls upon the U.S. government, international human rights bodies and United Nations to mandate holders to swiftly push for UN human rights field monitors. We further urge Congress to pursue additional measures for holding the government of Sri Lanka accountable for extensive and systematic human rights abuses. Immediate action, including the implementation of sanctions, should be pursued should the crisis situation persist.