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SRI LANKA

Human Rights Developments

The human rights situation in Sri Lanka was marked by the ongoing civil war in the northeast, the problems of repatriated refugees and a spate of political killings. Political violence in Sri Lanka reached a climax in 1993 with the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa on May 1, and of his chief political rival, Lalith Athulathmudali, one week earlier. The deaths were seen by many Sri Lankans as evidence of a profound erosion of Sri Lanka's political process by years of repression and violence.

A decade of civil war between government forces and Tamil separatists, two violent insurgencies, and counterinsurgency efforts in which police and soldiers have engaged in arbitrary arrests, torture, murders and disappearances have claimed tens of thousands of lives. In this atmosphere of lawlessness, during 1993 death threats and physical assaults were aimed at politicians from many parties, at journalists covering political rallies, human rights lawyers and trade unionists.

Athulathmudali, head of the Democratic United National Front (DUNF), was shot while addressing an April 23 campaign rally for the upcoming provincial council elections. Although the government accused the guerrilla group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of the murder, many Colombo residents blamed the ruling party. At least twelve other violent attacks against opposition politicians were reported during the campaign, as well as more than eighty arrests.

Athulathmudali's funeral on April 28 became a massive anti-Premadasa demonstration at which two people were killed and more than forty injured when police opened fire on some of the marchers.

Two days later, President Premadasa himself was assassinated in a bomb blast at a May Day rally for the United National Party (UNP). Twenty others were also killed. Police superintendent Ronnie Gunasinghe, who had been implicated in the 1990 death-squad murder of journalist Richard De Zoysa, was among the casualties. The bombing was again attributed to the LTTE.

Former Prime Minister Dingiri Banda Wijetunga was immediately sworn in as Acting President and was unanimously elected by the parliament on May 7.

Although several human rights agencies designed to investigate disappearances and protect the rights of detainees had operated since 1991, and abusive provisions of emergency regulations were revised in 1993, prosecution of state forces for abuses remained rare.

As of November 1993, a verdict had still not been reached in the case of twenty-three Sri Lankan soldiers tried in civilian court on charges of massacring thirty-five Tamil civilians in the village of Mahilanthani in eastern Batticaloa District in August 1992. The soldiers pleaded innocent when the hearings opened on March 2.

In response to internal and external criticism, Wijetunga announced in mid-May that he would consider constitutional amendments to limit the powers of the presidency, and that he had dissolved a secret police force established under Premadasa which kept dossiers on political opponents and influential businessmen. Wijetunga also promised to end government interference with the press. On May 26, The Island, an independent Colombo newspaper, reported that the government had issued instructions to the police and other authorities not to interfere with media freedom because such interference could "have deleterious international repercussions."

Even so, in October, Iqbal Athas, a senior journalist who covers military affairs for the Sunday Times, and had been critical of army operations, received phone calls threatening his life and the kidnapping of his daughter. Army commander Lieutenant General Cecil Waidyaratne has been accused of issuing the threats.

Leaders of the Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSSP), journalist Saman Wagaarachchi, Secretary of the Free Media Movement, an organization that monitors press freedom, and Yukthiya, the newspaper Wagaarachchi works for, also received death threats after releasing statements criticizing the threats against Athas.

In July, doubts resurfaced about Wijetunge's commitment to human rights accountability when the government pardoned the former deputy inspector general of police, Premadasa Udugampola, and appointed him vice chairman of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, after he rescinded his accusations of government complicity in the operation of death squads. Udugampola is thought to be the architect of some of the most brutal counter-terrorist tactics against the Sinhalese Marxist Nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a militant insurgency that was reponsible for several thousand deaths in the late 1980s.

The civil war in Sri Lanka entered its tenth year in 1993 with the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government continuing to battle for control of the northern and eastern parts of the country. Both LTTE militants and paramilitary groups affiliated with the army engaged in killings, abductions and torture of suspected informers and enemy sympathizers.

Massive repatriation of Sri Lankan refugees from India continued [see India entry], adding to the more than 600,000 persons already displaced by the war. Returnees and the internallydisplaced in Sri Lanka complained of harassment; arbitrary arrests and mistreatment by police and pro-government Tamil paramilitary groups; and the threat of violence from the LTTE against suspected government sympathizers.

Although the number of reported disappearances committed by government forces continued to drop in 1993, the Human Rights Task Force (HRTF), a government agency, reported that it had received over 2,000 complaints of missing persons since August 1992, some of them dating back to 1991. Of those reported missing, 114 persons were traced to police stations and army detention centers. The missing included sixteen Tamils who disappeared around Batticaloa after their arrest by the army in February 1993.

The army and police, often with the help of PLOTE (People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam), a former Tamil separatist group which now aids the government in counterinsurgency, and two other armed groups, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Oganization (TELO) and the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), continued to engage in massive and arbitrary search and arrest operations which targeted Tamils throughout the island. Arrests escalated following the assassinations of Premadasa and Lalith Athulathmudali.

Despite a government agreement in June to implement safeguards to prevent mistreatment of detainees and discourage arrests based solely on ethnicity, large-scale arrests of Tamils in and around Colombo continued. More than 2,000 Tamil civilians were picked up for questioning during the second week of October; most were released shortly thereafter.

In October 1993, President Wijetunga announced to a delegation of European parliamentarians that the government had established a special agency to investigate disappearances reported during the eight-year period from 1983 to 1991.

The Right to Monitor

Although nongovernmental human rights organizations enjoyed more freedom to operate than in previous years, and intimidation of human rights lawyers eased in 1993, threats continued to be reported. A lawyer involved in a much-publicized disappearance case against army officers in the south left the country in July after having received anonymous threats warning him to withdraw the case.

Labor unionists involved in peaceful protests and journalists covering labor rights issues also faced harassment and assaults by police officers.

U.S. Policy

The U.S. government continued to raise human rights issues with the Sri Lankan government. From October 13 to 19, Prime Minister Wickremasinghe visited Washington and was told by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, among others, that the human rights situation left room for improvement.

On June 18, the thirteen-member Sri Lanka Aid Group of donor nations, including the U.S., pledged $840 million for 1994, a $15-million increase over 1993. The U.S., while noting"continuing improvement in the human rights picture," urged the Sri Lankan government to "redouble" its efforts to implement commitments made to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, specifically to "prosecute those responsible for abuses"; to "further revise the Emergency Regulations to reduce the opportunities for abuse and to remove non-emergency related provisions;" and to "investigate the conditions under which detainees and prisoners are interrogated." The U.S. also condemned LTTE abuses.

The administration planned to continue IMET (International Military Education and Training) assistance to Sri Lanka, estimated at approximately $225,000, including training in military justice systems and human rights norms; the fiscal year 1994 security request proposed expanded IMET training. No Foreign Military Sales aid was expected; commercial military sales were expected to drop from an estimated $2.6 million in fiscal year 1993 to $1.3 in fiscal year 1994.

The Work of Asia Watch

Asia Watch's work in Sri Lanka focused on refugee protection and the repatriation of Tamil refugees from India because of reports of violations of humanitarian law in areas to which refugees were being returned as well as reports of abuse by paramilitary forces guarding resettlement centers. In April, Asia Watch sent a delegation to Sri Lanka and southern India to investigate reports of involuntary repatriation and human rights violations against returnees.

In June Asia Watch addressed a memorandum to countries providing assistance to Sri Lanka, raising the above concerns.

In August, Asia Watch released a report, calling on the governments of both India and Sri Lanka to halt a planned repatriation until there were firm guarantees that the refugees were going back voluntarily and would not be subjected to any form of persecution on their return.

In October, Asia Watch met with Prime Minister Wickremasinghe in Washington, D.C. to discuss human rights concerns and government initiatives to address abuses.

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