The tribute prefacing a new report by the international aid agency Action Contre la Faim (ACF, Action Against Hunger) is heart-wrenching: 17 black-and-white photos of fresh-faced, mostly 20-something men and women. Most are humanitarian technicians. And all were shot and killed execution-style in Mutur, in northeastern Sri Lanka, on August 4, 2006.
Later that month I visited ACF’s Colombo office, where everyone was in shock. It was unclear who was responsible for the killings: the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who had briefly occupied Mutur, or state security forces who recaptured the town after heavy fighting. We discussed ways of pressing the government to conduct an investigation.
Doubts about the gunmen’s identities have now largely vanished. Careful investigative work by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) fingered the police and navy special forces units involved, and named names of the higher-ups allegedly responsible for the killings.
But the government has found ways to look like it was taking action without really doing anything. In 2009, aPresidential Commission of Inquiry created to investigate 16 major human rights cases exonerated the armed forces in a flawed process, instead blaming the Tamil Tigers or a Muslim militia. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has never made the full report public.
The new ACF report says that security forces prevented ACF and other international agencies from reaching the crime scene for several days. Police and state investigators made no effort to conduct a serious investigation. And subsequent government inquiries have only sought to deflect international attention. ACF concludes that the 17 aid workers “were likely assassinated by members of Sri Lankan security forces and the criminals must have been covered up by Sri Lankan top authorities.”
ACF said they went public because there are “no prospects of an effective domestic investigation today.” And “only an independent international investigation can effectively lead to prosecution of the killers.”
Human Rights Watch and others have long pressed for an international investigation into this and many other atrocities committed by both sides during Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war.
One hopes governments that can act on ACF’s plea – most readily at the United Nations Human Rights Council in March – are listening. Those 17 black-and-white photos are not going away.
