he major parties, in rejecting a Greens Senate motion today calling for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth, have failed to take action on the war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the civil war, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

The motion below, supported only by the nine Greens Senators, follows a round table on Sri Lanka held at Federal Parliament on Tuesday.

“With the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth next month, now is the opportunity for the Australian government to put pressure on Sri Lanka to establish an independent war crimes commission,” Senator Rhiannon said.

“Prominent lawyers, academics and human rights activists back the call to use Sri Lanka’s involvement in CHOGM as a way of securing justice for those impacted by the brutal civil war.

“Idly standing by while Sri Lankan heads of state attend CHOGM in October and then CHOGM in Colombo in 2013 is highly problematic.

“Suspending Sri Lanka from the Councils of the Commonwealth will send a strong message that war crimes should be properly examined and addressed.

“Until Sri Lanka faces its past the nation cannot be a proud member of the Commonwealth, and reinstate the rule of law and human rights.

“The Australian Greens will continue to work both in and outside Parliament to campaign for justice for those subject to the horrendous atrocities experienced during the Sri Lankan civil war,” Senator Rhiannon said.

The Hon John Dowd said, “The government and opposition have failed for purely political reasons to take the events in Sri Lanka as seriously as justice requires.

“Although the vote against was on party lines there are very large numbers of members in the government and opposition parties which share the concern of the Greens.

“If the Commonwealth is to continue to be taken seriously as it goes into the October CHOGM meeting dealing with the subject of human rights, Australia cannot continue to put its head in the sand.

“The tens of thousands killed during the slaughter of 2009 and their surviving families have been completely abandoned by the majority of Senators.

Motion

That the Senate-
(a) notes:

(i) a roundtable meeting held in Federal Parliament supported a call for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth because it has:

(A) refused to hold an independent investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the civil war in 2009, and

(B) breached its commitment to uphold the ‘rule of law’ in the Commonwealth’s values and principles, as set out in the Millbrook Commonwealth Action Program,

(ii) a precedent was set for temporarily suspending a country from the Councils of the Commonwealth when Pakistan was suspended in 1999 and Fiji was suspended in 2000 and 2006, and

(iii) the Sri Lankan President is planning to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in October 2011; and

(b) calls on the Australian Government to support calls for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth until the Government of Sri Lanka:

(i) agrees to an international independent investigation into war crimes,

(ii) restores human rights and the rule of law, and

(iii) implements all of the recommendations of the United Nations Expert Panel Report on War Crimes in Sri Lanka.

A round table held at Federal Parliament today resolved to call for a suspension of Sri Lanka from the Councils of the Commonwealth pending an international independent investigation into war crimes (see backgrounder below). This is the first time that groups in Australia have publicly made this call.

Greens Senator for NSW Lee Rhiannon said: “Sri Lanka will continue to be the elephant in the room in Commonwealth forums until allegations of war crimes and discrimination are independently investigated and addressed.

“Last week Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper set the bar for Commonwealth leaders to follow in questioning whether Sri Lanka should continue to host the 2013 CHOGM meeting unless it can prove it has made progress on investigating alleged war crimes.

“With CHOGM shortly to be held in Perth the Australian government needs to add its voice and ensure that all Commonwealth nations uphold principles of human rights and the rule of law”, said Senator Rhiannon.

The Hon John Dowd said: “It would be a disgrace to the whole Commonwealth if CHOGM were to be held in Sri Lanka prior to Sri Lanka dealing with the war crimes committed there.

“There will be no justice for the people of Sri Lanka or solution to the problems unless the crimes committed on both sides are dealt with.

“The Commonwealth must suspend Sri Lanka from its membership. Failure to do so will mean all members condone the recent history of Sri Lanka” said Mr Dowd.

Dr Sam Pari, spokesperson for the Australian Tamil Congress said: “The Sri Lankan regime needs to know that perpetrators of war crimes cannot simply continue to evade accountability with impunity, and deny justice to their victims.

“A tribunal for the Tamil killing field should be turned into a global symbol of deterrence for other authoritarian regimes willing to kill their own civilians. Without a tribunal, the Tamil killing field becomes a horrific precedent suggesting that in our era, states can escape unscathed for egregious violations of human rights law.

“Suspending Sri Lanka will send a strong unambiguous message to Sri Lanka: as long as you continue to obstruct an international independent inquiry into war crimes you will face consequences”, said Dr Pari.

The roundtable resolved the following:

We call on the Australian Government and the Federal Opposition to:

1.            Support calls for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Councils of the Commonwealth until the government of Sri Lanka agrees to an international independent investigation into war crimes, restoration of human rights and the rule of law and the implementation of all of the recommendations of the UN Expert Panel Report on War Crimes in Sri Lanka. Failing that event occurring within a reasonable time that steps be instituted to suspend Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth.

2.            Oppose Sri Lanka hosting CHOGM in 2013.

We call on the Prime Minister Julia Gillard to follow the lead of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in saying he will not attend CHOGM in Sri Lanka in 2013 if there is no progress in Sri Lanka’s human rights and the establishment of an independent investigation into war crimes.

The round table, hosted by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, looked at furthering the call for an independent war crimes tribunal for Sri Lanka. Participants were: the Hon John Dowd AO QC (President of the International Commission of Jurists Australia); Dr Sam Pari (Australian Tamil Congress); Associate Professor Jake Lynch (Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney University); Dr Ben Saul (Professor of International Law and Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at Sydney University); Peter Arndt (Executive Officer of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission Brisbane); Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon.

Contacts:  Lee Rhiannon 0487 350 880; John Dowd 0439 625 007; Sam Pari 0433 428 967; Jake Lynch 0420 980 010; Peter Arndt 0409 265 476

A Joint Open Letter to Commonwealth Foreign Ministers from Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Asian Legal Resource Centre, Centre for Policy Alternatives, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Human Rights Watch, INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, Sri Lanka, International Federation for Human Rights, Law and Society Trust, Minority Rights Group International, and Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice

Subject: The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2013

We are gravely concerned about the ongoing discussions on holding the 2013 CHOGM in Sri Lanka.

At the 2009 CHOGM, Sri Lanka’s candidature for hosting the meeting was deferred from 2011 to 2013 because of concerns about human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government. While war-time abuses have ended, the situation in Sri Lanka continues to be characterised by serious human rights violations, including assault on democratic institutions, such as the media and trade unions. The Panel of Experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to advise him on the status of allegations of war crimes during the last weeks of the conflict in Sri Lanka has concluded that serious abuses were committed by the government and by the LTTE, and warrant an international investigation.

Consideration of Sri Lanka as host of the next CHOGM appears grossly inappropriate in the above context. Awarding the next CHOGM to Sri Lanka would not only undermine the fundamental values on which the Commonwealth is based, but also has the potential to render the Commonwealth’s commitment to human rights and the promise of reforms meaningless.

At this crucial juncture, when the Commonwealth is seeking to strengthen its legitimacy and relevance, there is an urgent need for the institution to take principled decisions that demonstrate its commitment to the fundamental values of democracy and human rights.

The fact that the host country of the CHOGM goes on to hold the chairmanship of the Commonwealth (from 2013 to 2015) is also a serious concern. Handing over leadership of the Commonwealth to a country with a questionable record in terms of human rights and democracy should not be the outcome of an event that will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Harare Declaration.

We note that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) is looking into ways in which it can fully implement its mandate to act on “serious or persistent violations” of the Commonwealth’s fundamental values.

We urge that the CMAG should call on the government of Sri Lanka to meet a specific set of benchmarks within an agreed upon timeline in order to prove itself worthy of hosting the Commonwealth’s emblematic meeting in 2013.

These benchmarks could include:

1. Ensuring meaningful domestic implementation of the international human rights treaties to which the Government of Sri Lanka is party and bringing all legislation in line with international human rights standards;
2. Providing guarantees that all Sri Lankan people will be treated with dignity and respect as equal citizens and live in an environment in which they can enjoy all fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Sri Lanka;
3. Restoring Constitutional provisions that guarantee separation of powers and re-instating the independence of the three wings of government;
4. Restoring the independence of key government institutions, such as the National Human Rights Commission;
5. Instituting effective mechanisms to protect journalists, civil society groups and human rights defenders who work for the promotion and protection of human rights;
6. Supporting and cooperating with independent and credible domestic and international investigations into all allegations concerning violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in the country, especially related to the conduct of the conflict which ended in 2009; and
7. Committing to collaborate with the Office of the UN Secretary General to initiate the implementation of the recommendations set out in the report of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts.

CMAG should conduct its monitoring of these benchmarks in a transparent way, in cooperation with the government and with full participation by civil society.

Sincerely,

Yap Swee Seng, Executive Director
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)

Wong Kai Shing, Executive Director
Asian Legal Resource Centre

Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director
Centre for Policy Alternatives

Maja Daruwala, Director
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

Brad Adams, Asia Director
Human Rights Watch

Sunila Abeysekera
INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, Sri Lanka

Souhayr Belhassen, President
International Federation for Human Rights

Ruki Fernando
Law and Society Trust

Chris Chapman
Minority Rights Group International

Edward Mortimer CMG, Chair
Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice

Chilling images of slaughter demand firm action.

IF THIS column has contributed anything to the game it has been to push it towards recognising a wider responsibility. Sport is not a trivial distraction but part of our daily lives. It is not an escape but an embrace. Cricket, especially, has an opportunity to advance racial and religious tolerance. Have not these causes united all men and women deemed great?

Alas, it has mostly preferred to bury its head in the sand. Cricket mostly ignored the state-sponsored slaughter of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and Ndebele in Zimbabwe in the 1980s. Few officials or reporters condemned the West Indies’ refusal to appoint a black captain, a policy that lasted deep into the 1950s.

Not that any game ought to involve itself in local affairs. Legitimate politics provides a choice between legitimate parties. Sovereign nations are entitled to determine their own fates. Tyranny is another matter. Barack Obama has espoused a policy of intervening in countries only when they start killing their own. His dividing line is well drawn and sport ought to heed it. In the past 40 years, cricket has known two clear tyrannies, apartheid and Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU-PF.

Almost alone among English cricketers of the era, I was a member of anti-apartheid groups and wrote columns to that effect. Eventually the progressives prevailed and the world celebrated. Next came the violence let loose upon the Zimbabwean people by a ruthless and latterly illegitimate government.

Several victims of ZANU torture squads now live in my South African home; another escaped from a burning house as the militia tried to kill his family. The idea of shaking hands with the perpetrators makes my stomach churn. But cheated opposition parties decided that compromise was the only way forward, and they are the people on the ground. Accordingly, I support cricket contact with Zimbabwe.

Now cricket has been forced to confront another serious issue. Following a devastating documentary, recently aired in Australia, Michael Atherton wrote that England ought to consider its position before undertaking its tour to Sri Lanka. Footage was shown of soldiers executing Tamils, prisoners of war and civilians alike. Women were raped, children abused, hospitals bombed, and no questions asked.

The former England captain described the sights as the most shocking seen on television since the Ethiopian food crisis.

The regime in Colombo carried out these atrocities, chased away reporters and blocked the UN’s attempts to investigate. Sri Lanka is dangerous for journalists. Not so long ago a friend of mine, the editor of The Sunday Leader, was assassinated.

Atherton compares the Sri Lankan regime to that of Robert Mugabe and challenges his community to reflect upon its differing responses. Inconsistency is widespread. My African contingent includes a Congolese student who saw soldiers burning alive defeated opponents. Yet his country mostly escapes scrutiny.

Now Sri Lanka is in the spotlight. The next step is to insist upon an independent inquiry. It is vital to establish the facts. Clearly the Australian players are entitled to have as much information as possible at their disposal before making any decision to visit any country. They are scheduled to tour Sri Lanka next month. I will be going to Sri Lanka because that is the job of journalists.

Already one leading player has said the documentary made him feel sick and that he had been having nightmares since. Another observer has raised the issue of a boycott.

It’s not a straightforward matter because the government appears to have been legitimately elected. After decades of civil war the country is ostensibly at peace.

Cricket can be uplifting. It has seen a black man captaining the West Indies, a Muslim playing for Australia, another leading India and a Tamil taking 800 Test wickets for his country. But it also needs to recognise reality and deal with it in a mature manner.

National Times (09/08) – Cricket must face up to political bouncers by Peter Roebuck

Galle Literary Festival Appeal

Reporters Without Borders and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), a network of exiled Sri Lankan journalists, announce the launch of an international appeal already signed by Noam Chomsky, Arundathi Roy, Ken Loach, Antony Loewenstein and Tariq Ali, asking writers and intellectuals to endorse a campaign for more freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.

In a few days, the family and colleagues of political cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda will be commemorating the first anniversary of his disappearance. He was kidnapped in the heavily-guarded capital, Colombo, on 24 January 2010, a few hours before the most recent presidential elections. The authorities have never given his wife any information about where he might be and the investigation is in limbo.

At the same time, writers from Asia and all over the world are planning to gather in the southern city of Galle for a literary festival co-sponsored by the country’s leading tourism promotion agencies (http://www.galleliteraryfestival.co…). Reporters Without Borders and JDS find it highly disturbing that literature is being celebrated in this manner in a land where cartoonists, journalists, writers and dissident voices are so often victimized by the current government. The signatories of this appeal ask them to consider this grave situation before deciding to go to the Galle Festival.

Full version of the Galle Appeal

We urge you who have been invited to attend the fifth Galle Literary Festival (26-30 January 2011) to consider Sri Lanka’s appalling human rights record and targeting of journalists. Reporters without Borders said this about Sri Lanka in a recent report: “Murders, physical attacks, kidnappings, threats and censorship continue in Sri Lanka despite the end of the civil war. The most senior government officials, including the defence secretary (the President’s brother), are directly implicated in serious press freedom violations affecting both Tamil and Sinhalese journalists.”

We believe this is not the right time for prominent international writers like you to give legitimacy to the Sri Lankan government’s suppression of free speech by attending a conference that does not in any way push for greater freedom of expression inside that country.

The second anniversary of journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda’s disappearance will be on 24 January 2011, just two days before the Galle Literary Festival begins. He went missing in the capital city after writing a column praising the opposition candidate in the presidential election. The police have failed to conduct a credible investigation into his disappearance. Today, because Prageeth chose to do what you do – express an opinion – his two young sons are without a father.

Another renowned journalist, Lasantha Wickremetunga, was gunned down in the capital on 8 January 2009. Although his murder took place in a high-security area where security forces personnel were manning roadblocks, his killers were allowed to escape. In a chilling editorial published posthumously, Mr. Wickremetunga said: “When I am finally killed, it will be the government who killed me.”

Fourteen journalists have been killed since 2006, three have disappeared, and more than 30 have fled the country. Journalists, writers and performers remaining in the country are constantly threatened, physically attacked or cowed by legislation under which they can be jailed them for up to 20 years simply for what they write.

The stifling of free expression has also had a negative impact on other freedoms in Sri Lanka. For instance, it was because journalists were not permitted to cover the war between the government and rebel LTTE that so many atrocities took place, including alleged war crimes. While mounting evidence of Sri Lanka’s war crimes is being shown around the world, journalists inside the country cannot talk about them or even visit the northern areas because they are afraid that they will disappear or be killed.

It is this environment that you will be legitimizing by your presence.

We ask you in the great tradition of solidarity that binds writers together everywhere, to stand with your brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka who are not allowed to speak out. We ask that by your actions you send a clear message that, unless and until the disappearance of Prageeth is investigated and there is a real improvement in the climate for free expression in Sri Lanka, you cannot celebrate writing and the arts in Galle.

Signatories

Noam Chomsky
Arundathi Roy
Ken Loach
Antony Loewenstein
Tariq Ali
R. Cheran
Dave Rampton

Noam Chomsky and Antony Loewenstein are also part of the Advisory Council to the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice.  Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Associate Professor Jake Lynch and  Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees are also part of this Council.

Forwarded by Jack H Smit (18/01/11) - Project SafeCom Inc. http://www.safecom.org.au/

This comes from an Afghan asylum seeker who is taking part in the mass hunger strikes that broke out today, 18 Jan 2011:

1100 people are in Curtin detention prison. More then 300 are on hunger strike. The rest, 100% are boycotting the mess.

Last week only 3 people got a decision, all of them ‘No’. Now the Australian Government has made an agreement with the Karzai government.  Now the Australian government is sending us back to that country. It is like signing an agreement with our enemy. Is that humanity?

Yesterday a young man tried to kill himself.  He cut himself all over his body.  They took him to the hospital in the morning and brought him back to his room in the evening.  He is still in his room.  Now more than 300 people are on hunger strike sitting in the hot sun with no shadow, no shade.

More people are coming to join us, 3 or 4 at a time, because our problem is the same. We want freedom or death, protection not detention. We have taken the white boards from the classroom. We have written on them with the marker: We want freedom or death; we want protection not detention; we want positive outcome.

Tell our friends, tell the media, tell the green party. We want to talk with an authorised person.  The Immigration officers who are living in Curtin, when we ask them questions – they have one answer – ‘sorry, we have no authority’. We demand to Immigration here in Curtin – who is authorised? We say to them – ‘we dont want to talk to you’.

We will continue til someone comes with authority. We are ready!  See it on the white board – freedom or death! When we arrived on Ashmore Reef, when they took us to Christmas Island, they told us to wait for six months, it was the law. We did that because we are following the law of Australia. Now the process has started, no decision, no result. We have danger in our country, we can’t go back. We are waiting for an authorised person and we need an answer from that person!

Meanwhile, Serco guards are watching us, walking around us, asking why we are doing this, asking what are our demands – they will send them to Immigration.  None of the officers of Immigration in Curtin are coming near to us.