Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you.

Prime Minister Harper did not attend the 2013 commonwealth heads of government meeting held in Sri Lanka because of the country's poor human rights record. Some close Canadian allies, including Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, chose to attend. In your view, what was the effect of the decision by Prime Minister Harper, the Prime Minister of India and the Premier of Mauritius, not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, and what is your assessment of the impact of British Prime Minister David Cameron's efforts to call attention to continuing impunity in Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting?

[Frances Harrison]

I think the announcement by Canada that it wouldn't go was very positive in focusing attention on the obvious problems of a country like Sri Lanka chairing the Commonwealth and hosting this meeting. Certainly, in Sri Lanka it was seen as their opportunity to be on the world stage, to be accepted back. There was an awful lot of pomp and excitement about it. For anyone who follows Sri Lankan human rights records, or those who feel that this would be an opportunity to whitewash its war crimes record, I think the announcement..... Obviously, the Indian Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Mauritius didn't go, but that was really at the last minute. I think the fact that Canada made this position very clear in advance focused a lot of attention.

When you look at the British media, for example, which did a lot of stories in the run-up to CHOGM--and I'm talking about domestic TV stations, not channel 4 of the BBC, but ITV--all the major newspapers, whether they're on the left or the right, did stories about human rights in Sri Lanka in the run-up to CHOGM. I think the fact that Canada had taken this very public position focused the news agenda in a way on human rights.

I was really surprised that the Mauritian Prime Minister didn't go. That seemed to follow on from the Indian decision. Those were quite surprising to many people, and then of course the decision by Mauritius not to host the next CHOGM—not to be the next chair—was I think absolutely shocking to Sri Lankans. Looking at social media at the time when it came out, I think even the more liberal Sri Lankans found that an absolute slap in the face. They were horrified. They couldn't believe it.

David Cameron's performance in Jaffna was a surprise, I think, to many of us when he talked about engagement being the way forward. I think we were quite skeptical when he did, in a way, steal the show. Perhaps, again, it was because of the problems that the British media had before they arrived and the fact that the families of the disappeared were so brave, yet again, to go out in Jaffna and show themselves, as they had done when Navi Pillay went there. That seemed to strengthen his resolve to be more outspoken, and that was surprising. So I think it can work quite well, the two countries' different positions. I think we got the best from both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

Professor Cotler, please.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you for being with us, Ms. Harrison.

I was truly touched by an article you wrote in The Globe and Mail a year ago in speaking about the UN's grave failure in Sri Lanka and demanding an answer. You were writing then about how this was “Ban Ki-moon's Rwanda moment” in terms of what occurred there; as you said, it was “a little-reported war three years ago on a tiny Indian Ocean island where tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered, waiting for the United Nations to come and rescue them”.

My question to you is, what is there from your writing.... I know that elsewhere you speak about this whole investigation on your part and how difficult and painful it is. What is it that you might have learned in your investigation also about what the UN needs to do in terms of the training of its officials, sensitizing them about the responsibility to protect, which they did not appear to appreciate that this was something they were obliged to do?

[Frances Harrison]

I think what's important about the UN internal inquiry report is the preamble, which puts the conflict in the context of 9/11 and the global war on terror. I think that whole labelling of the LTTE as terrorists, and you can argue about that.... But I think the fact that the war was positioned as a war on terror—and the Sri Lankan government still does that, they talk about the “terrorists” still—made it very complicated and very difficult for the UN in engaging with them.

Perhaps the UN got a lot of the blame; obviously, many of the member states supported the elimination of the LTTE, too, it looks like. The problem is that, somehow, nobody had a plan for after the war. I don't think anybody reckoned on the extent of civilian casualties being quite as grave as it was.

At the end of the war, there was a lot of talk about devolution-of-power packages, but it has become apparent that the Sri Lankan government has absolutely no interest in that. The failure to hold them accountable for these appalling crimes has led to ongoing crimes, and perhaps ongoing crimes against humanity in terms of the scale of rape.

I don't know if that answers your question. I mean, what more could the UN do? I think it needs to take more notice of its staff on the ground. It was problematic that it withdrew from rebel areas when the ICRC didn't. It could have stayed on in more of a witness capacity.

From what many UN people say, the decisions were made in New York, not in Sri Lanka, and clearly the Sri Lankan government bullied and intimidated the local agency heads. They selected people they thought had less human rights knowledge and experience and less conflict experience, so they could bully them. They bugged all their computers and telephones. I think they harassed them to the nth degree, so that it became very difficult for them to operate. But it needed very strong leadership in Colombo to champion those organizations, and that wasn't apparent.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

This leads me to a next and somewhat related question, but this goes beyond it now. You've made reference through the discussion here to the culture of fear in Sri Lanka. To me, this is not unrelated and is bound up with the culture of impunity, which is ongoing. It's a culture of impunity that relates to the commission of crimes against humanity.

My question is, what can the international community do to combat this culture of impunity? The International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction. Sri Lanka will not agree to it having jurisdiction. The UN Security Council is not likely to refer these crimes to the International Criminal Court. What are some of the initiatives or mechanisms that can be undertaken by the international community to combat this culture of impunity?

[Frances Harrison]

I'm no lawyer, but I'm advised that, for example, the UN Panel of Experts report by Yasmin Sooka and the other two lawyers has never been actually formally tabled at the UN Human Rights Commission. Certainly Ms. Sooka has said that any country could do that and then it will become a formal UN document, in the way that it doesn't have that status at the moment. So that would be something to look into. She certainly thinks that's possible.

There's a lot of frustration amongst diaspora Tamils at least about the reliance on the Geneva process, on the Human Rights Council there. After the immediate aftermath of the war, it congratulated Sri Lanka on its glorious victory against the terrorists. It has been a very slow and painful process moving forward. Even if one day it were to call for a commission of inquiry there still wouldn't be any punitive powers. I think probably the sensible route for victims who want redress is to go the route of individual prosecutions, using universal jurisdiction for torture.

Different countries in Europe have different rules about whether you need the victim or perpetrator to be a national in order to bring a case. I know that in some countries...in one country at least in Europe, the prosecutor's office has opened a case. There are British lawyers who have told me they are potentially willing to take on a case if I can find a victim who could identify a perpetrator. That's quite difficult because in the recent cases everyone's blindfolded. But it is possible theoretically to do that.

There might be a case of documenting a lot of these...taking testimonies and witness statements from people and figuring out, for example, patterns of abuse. If we know that there's a lot of rape and torture in a particular police station then you could potentially bring cases against the person who was in charge. We already know anecdotally there are several of them. But you'd really have to go with the pattern and the time period and a lot of allegations of rape and torture. At the moment there's no system to document it.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

One of the reasons I'm struck about the fallout from the culture of impunity is not only with regard to Sri Lanka, it's that when bad behaviour goes unpunished and it's not held accountable. You have in the situation, for example, in Syria where you have the bombing of bakeries and the bombing of hospitals, almost as if a page was taken out of the Sri Lankan war notebook, because if it was done in Sri Lanka with impunity it can be done by Syria with impunity. And it is being done by Syria with impunity, which is what disturbs me so much when you get this culture of impunity accompanied, understandably, by a culture of fear.

I was wondering if you might want to add anything to that?

[Frances Harrison]

If you look at the UN Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka they talk about the conduct of the war in Sri Lanka basically being a grave challenge to the entire regime of international humanitarian law. It's not just one or two war crimes. It's basically threatening the entire system.

You compared Sri Lanka and Syria. There are many other countries that are eyeing Sri Lanka's model and thinking, okay, maybe we could use what's called the Sri Lankan option, which is the scorched earth tactics, not distinguishing between civilians and combatants.

I've heard, for example, anecdotally, of the Colombian government talking and threatening that in talks with FARC, or certainly you hear people in Pakistan who talk about it in the context of the Baloch or you've heard about it in Burma and in other countries looking at it and saying, “Okay, maybe we can learn from Sri Lanka's defeat of terrorism militarily”.

Certainly every year they have this military conference where they invite other countries' militaries to come to Sri Lanka and they talk about their example, their learning from the destruction of the LTTE. That's rather worrying if you are concerned about human rights as well as defeating terrorism.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Ms. Harrison, I appreciate your responses to the questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

We go now to Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Chair, before you start my time, I was wondering is the clerk in possession of the internal inquiry report from the UN that was leaked out? I don't recall us ever having any kind of documentation in that regard. Was it leaked out in its entirety?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

The clerk wouldn't be in possession of it. Perhaps our analysts would be able to assist us with that.

[Miguel Bernal-Castillero, Committee Researcher]

We would be able to circulate it to the committee. We should be able to find it.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

It was leaked out in its entirety?

[Miguel Bernal-Castillero]

I wouldn't know. I can find out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I think our witness has something to say on that subject.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I'll have that as my first question then, Mr. Chair.

Please go ahead, Ms. Harrison.

[Frances Harrison]

I have a copy of the full document and I would definitely say that you should read it, the annexes as well. Quite a lot of the very important information is buried in the annexes. People don't often read those, but there is a redacted copy on the UN website. I think then some NGOs actually found that when the UN redacted the text, if you copied and pasted it, you could actually read the redacted portions and what was redacted were all the bits that were fed to senior UN officials in New York.

I can easily give you my draft or you can go and read the redacted version, whichever you wish.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I'm certain the researchers would be happy if you saved them the trouble and submitted that. That would be great. Thank you very much.

I didn't get a chance, because of the way my first questions started. I want to thank you very much for all the great work that you've done in Sri Lanka. I don't doubt that it's been more than emotionally painful to do it.

I have before me some notes. I think they were entered as testimony. I'm not certain at this time, because it was some time ago, so I'll just say that they're notes from the Sri Lankan High Commission.

The concluding remarks in these notes are:

The need of the hour is to focus on reconciliation issues. The people in Sri Lanka and especially the Tamils in the North and East want to live in peace. Sri Lanka needs the time and space to address these huge challenges.

From your testimony today, I think there is little to no sincerity in the regime that's presently in Sri Lanka, in regard to that statement of needing reconciliation.

Is that an overstatement?

[Frances Harrison]

No. I think for many Tamils “reconciliation” has actually become a dirty word, a tainted word. When you look at the rehabilitation program—even seven cases of torture are far too many, and there well may be more out there—it goes to the heart of the issue of good faith on the part of the Sri Lankan government's commitment to rehabilitation and reconciliation. They say they need more time and space, but we're nearly five years after the conflict and we have a government in Colombo that's strong and powerful and able to make political concessions.

There's no government that's ever been in such a strong position politically to make those concessions, and yet they've done nothing. In fact, they've picked fights with Muslims, other minorities, Christians. Although there's been considerable Indian pressure to have some sort of very modest devolution-of-power deal, they've resisted that and centralized power, if anything.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

There are other aspects of this note from March 2012, namely, that the “Government has spent over US$360 million on its resettlement programme”, and that there “were more than 11,951 former LTTE combatants and 595 child soldiers who had surrendered or were detained at the end of the conflict”.

I asked the two previous witnesses about this. Fortunately, you seem to have some knowledge of it. I'm concerned that this rehabilitation program might be a euphemism for how they're actually treating these LTTE combatants.

[Frances Harrison]

The evidence I found raised very serious concerns. A lot more work needs to be done to show how extensive these cases are. Seven cases in the UK amongst 12,000 is just a drop in the ocean. But the people I met had very compelling stories, with evidence to back it up, and those stories were pretty similar. I think it's of great concern if the rehabilitation program was really a place where there was torture.

The ICRC had initial access, and then no access. The International Organization for Migration had some access in the latter phases. Some of the people I met had IOM cards. IOM's program is funded by Norway, Britain, and U.S. aid, and I think Japanese aid.

But none of the people who said they'd been tortured said they could actually say so to either ICRC or IOM. They said IOM did screening, and it was with an eye to resettling people, or sending them home from those camps. They drove them away from the rehabilitation centres. But the people I've met had been through so much harassment after they'd been released, and they didn't seem think that IOM was a place they could go for help.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

You mentioned that there were a number of cases—22, was it?— where you documented individuals who were subjected to rape, torture, and cigarette burns.

[Frances Harrison]

There were 12 cases that occurred in 2013. Being a journalist, I'm looking for the most contemporary thing. I'm looking at the ongoing situation. In the U.K. alone, I found 12 men and women, many of whom had evidence proving that they had been raped this year in Sri Lanka. Then there were eight from last year. Human Rights Watch had 12 different cases from last year. I think there's a lot more from last year, because there's a time lag in people coming out of the country.

But I was surprised that I could find quite so many people already in the U.K. alleging rape in, basically, secret military camps and similar places. It was systematic. It was a standard operating procedure of abduction and release, and it affected how they were treated in detention. So in no way could this have been rogue officers just doing their own thing. There was no sense in which they abducted these women and took them off into the jungle or anything. It was a very similar pattern again and again, and quite chilling as a result.