Recommendations from "Improving Civilian Protection in Sri Lanka"

“Improving Civilian Protection in Sri Lanka,” makes 34 recommendations to the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to better protect civilians:

I. Protecting Populations in Battle Zones

Recommendation 1: Known places of refuge should be provided ahead of an emergency with dry food, water, additional toilet facilities and other necessities to assist at-risk persons until humanitarian assistance can arrive.
Recommendation 2: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE should whenever possible provide effective advance warning of military operations, both broadly through loudspeakers, radio announcements or leaflets, and through direct messages to community leaders.
Recommendation 3: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE should appoint local civilian liaison officers who are known and accessible to a wide range of community leaders and have sufficient rank or clout within their respective forces to ensure that information they receive from at-risk communities gets directed to and is acted upon by the appropriate commanders in the field.
Recommendation 4: The Sri Lankan government and the LTTE should agree to and recognize demilitarized areas in accordance with international law. The location of demilitarized zones and other safe places of refuge should be disseminated to local commanders, with the recognition that there may be additional places of refuge that still must be protected from attack because of their civilian character.
Recommendation 5: Religious and community leaders in demilitarized zones and other known places of refuge should be able to contact, directly if possible, local military commanders on both sides.
Recommendation 6: The Sri Lankan government should provide or facilitate trauma counseling to communities affected by armed hostilities or serious human rights abuses. The LTTE should facilitate sponsored trauma counseling in LTTE-controlled areas.
Recommendation 7: In the event of continued hostilities, the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE should seek to reach a special agreement in accordance with the Geneva Conventions to implement the recommendations above on the protection of civilians in the battle zone.

II. Protecting Displaced Persons

Recommendation 8: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must not place displaced persons at risk by hindering or redirecting their free movement except for valid security reasons.
Recommendation 9: The Sri Lankan security forces and the LTTE should take proactive measures to ensure that the safety of displaced persons is not compromised by discrimination from their forces or local populations. Allegations of discrimination should be promptly investigated and addressed.
Recommendation 10: All returns of displaced persons should be genuinely voluntary, in safety and with dignity, in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

III. Ensuring Humanitarian Access

Recommendation 11: The Sri Lankan government and armed forces and the LTTE should communicate more closely with UN aid agencies and other humanitarian organizations to improve access to populations in conflict areas.
Recommendation 12: The Sri Lankan government and armed forces and the LTTE should instruct civilian officials and military commanders in the field to allow all humanitarian convoys access to civilians and only refuse access when a specific security reason requires otherwise. Refusals for valid security reasons should only be for as long as necessary, and may delay but should not block legitimate humanitarian assistance.
Recommendation 13: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE should use all available means to instruct their forces to respect and protect humanitarian aid personnel, their facilities, supplies and their transportation. Personnel who commit abuses against humanitarian organizations and their staff should be held criminally accountable.
Recommendation 14: While the Sri Lankan government may regulate NGO activities, it should do so in a manner that is in accordance with international standards, is transparent and provides clearly defined procedures. Registration should ultimately facilitate the work of NGOs. It should neither disrupt legitimate NGO activities nor put NGO workers at risk.

IV. Promoting Compliance with International Humanitarian Law

Recommendation 15: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must cease attacks directed against civilians. This message must be conveyed in the strongest terms to both senior military commanders and lower-ranking personnel.
Recommendation 16: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must cease all attacks that cannot be directed at a specific military target or that would cause disproportionate civilian loss.
Recommendation 17: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must do everything feasible to verify that they are attacking military targets, not civilians, and take all feasible precautions in conducting attacks to avoid loss of civilian life and property. In its conduct of aerial bombing, the Sri Lankan air force should institute measures to ensure that its information on military targets is current and accurate.
Recommendation 18: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must instruct commanders at all levels never to use civilians as shields, which is a war crime. Any combatant that uses or attempts to use human shields should be held fully accountable. Attacks on combatants using civilians as shields may not cause disproportionate civilian harm.
Recommendation 19: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must instruct commanders at all levels to protect civilians from the effects of attacks, such as by helping civilians withdrawal to safe places, providing accurate information about the military situation, and, to the extent feasible, avoiding placing their military forces within or near populated areas.
Recommendation 20: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE should never attack or otherwise intentionally disrupt objects and infrastructure indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, such as food supplies, agricultural areas, crops, livestock, water installations, irrigation works and the like.
Recommendation 21: The Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE must clearly convey to senior commanders and lower-ranking soldiers that carrying out or threatening reprisal attacks against civilians is unlawful and that those responsible for such attacks will be held accountable.
Recommendation 22: The LTTE and the Karuna group must immediately stop the recruitment of children into their armed forces and release those already in their ranks. The Sri Lankan government, police and armed forces must take urgent measures to obtain the release of persons arbitrarily detained by the Karuna group, including all children. Police who fail to take action against criminal activity by the Karuna group should be held accountable.

V. Promoting Adherence to International Human Rights Standards

Recommendation 23: The Sri Lankan government, the LTTE and all armed groups must stop extrajudicial killings and hold those responsible accountable. The government must investigate all alleged political killings and fully and fairly prosecute those implicated.
Recommendation 24: The Sri Lankan government and the LTTE should take all steps necessary to bring an end to the practice of “disappearances.” Investigate all cases of enforced disappearance and continue the investigation until the fate of the victim is clearly and publicly established. Hold accountable all those who order or carry out “disappearances.”
Recommendation 25: The Sri Lankan government should repeal or amend the Emergency Regulations of 2005 to comply with international human rights standards. Until they are so revised, local authorities must fully comply with the protections provided to persons detained under the regulations and under international human rights standards. The government should carry out an awareness campaign targeting all police stations to ensure that those detained are receiving the security guarantees provided in the regulations.
Recommendation 26: The Sri Lankan government should take steps to ensure the implementation of the Presidential Directives on the Arrest or Detention of Persons, including providing all police stations with the directives in Tamil and Sinhala, ensuring the availability of receipt books, and conducting appropriate training and follow-up to ensure their proper use. Appropriate action should be taken against station officers who fail to implement the directives. Police stations without Tamil speakers should establish contacts with appropriate civil society groups who can provide Tamil language assistance. Local offices of the Human Rights Commission should monitor police compliance with the directives.
Recommendation 27: The government should request that the United Nations establish an international monitoring mission in Sri Lanka with the capability to monitor and publicly report on the human rights situation in conflict-affected areas of the country, in particular the north and east and in Colombo. The LTTE should express support for such a monitoring mission.

VI. Preventing Communal Violence

Recommendation 28: The Sri Lankan government and LTTE should give full recognition to local efforts by civilians to establish or revive inter-ethnic networks, such as citizens’ or peace committees, to address ethnic concerns and help defuse communal tension. They should engage with these networks to find ways to reduce dangers to the civilian population. Both sides should take measures to stop threats and violence against committee members and take appropriate action against members of their forces responsible.
Recommendation 29: The Sri Lankan government and armed forces should ensure that senior civilian and military officials serving multi-ethnic communities are genuinely sensitive to the concerns of all communities and have the ability, including necessary language skills, to do their job effectively.

VII. Ending Impunity

Recommendation 30: The government should promptly enact a witness protection law and establish an adequately funded witness protection program. Until it does so, the government should adopt measures to ensure that witnesses, victims and others who are at risk be provided protective measures and security arrangements, counseling and other appropriate assistance.
Recommendation 31: The president should end the constitutional impasse that has prevented the appointment of commissioners to the Human Rights Commission and the Police Commission.
Recommendation 32: The government should ensure that the Human Rights Commission has sufficient competent staff and resources to investigate serious human rights abuses and assist in the prosecution of those responsible.
Recommendation 33: The government should create a competent, independent and impartial unit within the Police Commission to investigate serious human rights violations by members of the police force.
Recommendation 34: The government should invite the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to send a commission of inquiry to investigate the most egregious human rights and humanitarian law violations.