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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Sri Lanka: Human Rights Watch
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Asia Watch: Sri Lanka
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> Sri Lankan security personnel, government-linked vigilante
groups, and members of the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) continued in 1991 to engage in a pattern of gross
violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including
massacres of hundreds of civilians, torture, abductions and
arbitrary arrests. The high level of reported abuse has been
fairly constant since June 1990, when a cease-fire broke down
and fighting resumed between government forces and the LTTE. The
Sri Lankan military's indiscriminate bombing and strafing of
civilian areas destroyed homes, hospitals and businesses. The
northern city of Jaffna and its surrounding area, the base of
LTTE operations, remained without electricity as a consequence
of the military's targeting of the main power grid in 1990.
Storage of medicines and blood for transfusions remained
virtually impossible. In the eastern part of the country, at
least seven hundred may have disappeared since January 1991. In
the same period in the south, local sources have reported some
seven to ten disappearances a month of suspected supporters of
the Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (People's
Liberation Front, or JVP).
</p>
<p> In July, the most intense battle of the civil war took place
in the northeast. On July 9, five thousand Tamil militants
attacked an army base at Elephant Pass which guards the
railroad and main road between the Jaffna peninsula and the
mainland. Armed with new 14.5 mm artillery, the LTTE laid siege
to the camp, frustrating the army's aerial attempts to rescue
some eight hundred soldiers, many seriously wounded, who were
trapped within. There were also reports that the LTTE had
pressed hundreds of civilians into service to dig bunkers and
otherwise aid its defense, and that LTTE guerrillas kidnapped
over one hundred doctors and nurses from northeastern Sri Lanka
to treat those wounded in the Elephant Pass battle.
</p>
<p> Not only did this battle involve more combatants than any
previous encounter, but it also proved that the LTTE was
capable of conventional warfare against the Sri Lankan army. As
many as two thousand combatants and hundreds of civilians were
killed in more than three weeks of combat. Civilians in Jaffna
reported serious shortages of food and other necessities as a
result of the fighting. The siege was broken on August 3 by a
relief column of over ten thousand government soldiers. By late
October, the army had begun a second assault surrounding the
Jaffna peninsula and attacking LTTE targets in Jaffna from the
outlying islands.
</p>
<p> A government blockade of the north restricted transport of
all essential supplies including food and medicine, which
resulted in severe food shortages by late July. The embargo was
relaxed on August 8, but at the end of 1991, there was still a
lengthy list of prohibited items, including medicine, soya-based
foods, surgical equipment, batteries, gasoline and matches.
Fighting on the Jaffna peninsula in October led to another food
emergency.
</p>
<p> The government's response to international criticism of
human rights abuses has been largely superficial. Despite its
eagerness to improve its human rights image by appointing
commissions of inquiry to address certain highly publicized
human rights cases and issues, such as the problem of
disappearances, the results of these inquiries have been
disappointing.
</p>
<p> The government's failure adequately to address charges of
massive human rights violations became one of the main
accusations used by the opposition in its bid to impeach
President Ranasinghe Premadasa and return to a British-style
parliamentary system. On August 28, over one hundred
parliamentarians, including forty from the ruling United
National Party (UNP), moved to bring impeachment proceedings
against President Premadasa on charges of treason, bribery,
misconduct and intentional violation of the Constitution. The
motion charged that the President had:
</p>
<p> "failed to protect and intentionally and knowingly prevented
the investigations and conduct of inquiries and/or to punish
those responsible for the...murder of the well-known journalist
Mr. Richard De Zoysa, the disappearance of Mr. Lakshman Perera,
the disappearance of Mr. Krishna Hussain and thousands of
others including youth who were arbitrarily abducted, tortured,
killed and otherwise disposed of by hired killer groups."
</p>
<p>It also accused Premadasa of operating a "police state" to
intimidate political opponents and discourage public dissent.
</p>
<p> The president responded to the impeachment motion by
suspending Parliament until September 24, and ejecting eight
leading dissidents from the UNP. The Supreme Court upheld the
ejections on December 3.
</p>
<p> In several incidents in 1991, parties to the Sri Lankan
civil war indiscriminately attacked noncombatants. On May 3,
four workers from the human rights organization Doctors Without
Borders (MSF) were injured, two seriously, when a military
helicopter fired at their clearly marked vehicle. The team was
following a route which it said had been provided by Special
Operations Command in Colombo. The Sri Lankan government
initially claimed that the helicopter pilots were actually
targeting another vehicle, which was said to have fired shots
and to have been traveling behind the MSF vehicle. The MSF
workers denied that there was any other vehicle in the area. In
response to international protest, the Sri Lankan government
appointed a one-man commission of inquiry to look into the
attack. He concluded that the team had been on the wrong road
during a curfew, the helicopter was flying too high to see the
vehicle's markings, and no government personnel was responsible
for "any wrongful act of omission or commission." MSF officials,
who called the inquiry a "whitewash," suspended operations in
Sri Lanka until the government could guarantee the safety of
their personnel. The commission of inquiry suggested steps to
prevent such attacks in the future and, in July, MSF and the
government signed an agreement to expand the MSF program in Sri
Lanka.
</p>
<p> A second incident took place on June 11. Minutes after an
LTTE land mine blew up an army tractor, killing two soldiers,
angry government troops reportedly massacred over one hundred
civilians in the village of Kokkaddichcholai, in Batticaloa
District. According to local sources, fifty-six bodies were
burned and sixty-seven were buried, while forty people were
hospitalized. There are also unconfirmed reports from local
sources and international observers that as many as twenty-one
women were raped during the attack. Residents of
Kokkaddichcholai managed to get news of the massacre to
journalists in Colombo, forcing the government to respond with
unprecedented speed. It appointed a three-person commission of
inquiry to investigate the massacre and began holding hearings
at the air-force base in Batticaloa on July 29. Testimony also
has been taken in Colombo.
</p>
<p> According to a government report of late November, 136
witnesses have testified before the commission regarding deaths
and missing persons, and forty-six more must testify before the
commission begins to hear the testimony of army personnel and
other official witnesses. The remaining civilians witnesses are
expected to give evidence regarding damage caused to homes and
property during the massacre. As a result of this testimony,
the government estimates the death toll to be between fifty-two
and sixty-seven. The same report indicates that between June 12
and November 27 nineteen soldiers were arrested in connection
with the massacre, eighteen from the 5th Battalion Gemunu Watch
and one from the Pioneer Corps. They are being held at the
headquarters of the Gemunu Watch in Diyatalawa.
</p>
<p> The government's practice of a