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XIII. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) was set up to monitor the cease-fire agreement signed by the Government and the LTTE on February 22, 2002.  The members of the SLMM are Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland.  The SLMM is headquartered in Colombo, with six district offices in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara, Mannar, and Vavuniya.  In addition, there are naval monitoring teams in Jaffna and Trincomalee.  Each monitoring committee is comprised of five members, two nominated by the government, two by the LTTE and the fifth by the head of the SLMM mission.²⁰⁹

The SLMM’s mandate, as articulated in the cease-fire agreement, is to “enquire into any instance of violation of the terms and conditions of [the cease-fire agreement],” with the undertaking by both parties to “fully cooperate and rectify any matter of conflict caused by their respective sides.”²¹⁰  The SLMM is further directed to “take immediate action on complaints…and to enquire into and assist the Parties in the settlement of any dispute.”²¹¹  Under the terms of the agreement, the SLMM is meant to monitor technical compliance, such as maintaining zones of separation, ensuring agreed upon distances between the two sides, tracking movement of ammunitions, and ensuring disarmament of paramilitary groups. 

Significantly, the SLMM is also authorized to monitor the violation of international law by the government and the LTTE, and in particular to monitor that the two sides abstain from acts “against the civilian population, including such acts as torture, intimidation, abduction, extortion and harassment.”²¹²  The SLMM has been criticized for neglecting the latter part of its mandate, and Human Rights Watch’s interviews and analysis confirm this criticism.

Between February 1, 2002 and September 30, 2004, the SLMM received 1784 complaints of child recruitment and ninety-seven complaints of abduction of children against the LTTE.²¹³  Of these cases, the SLMM ruled that 1,441 of the child recruitment cases and fifty-two of the abducted cases were violations of the cease-fire agreement.

Although child recruitment cases make up the largest number of complaints received by the LTTE, Human Rights Watch interviews with SLMM monitors found that child recruitment is not treated consistently as a priority. A SLMM representative in Trincomalee told Human Rights Watch, “I don’t see child recruitment as anything to do with peace. Other issues are more endangering to the cease-fire than child recruitment, so we don’t raise it in meetings with the LTTE.”²¹⁴  Another monitor told Human Rights Watch that the SLMM mandate “isn’t exactly directed at child recruitment.”²¹⁵

According to the Trincomalee office, when the SLMM receives a complaint of child recruitment, it requests further information on the case from the LTTE, and if the allegation seems credible, makes a report to the LTTE in Kilinochchi. However, the SLMM also said that it handles very few complaints of underage recruitment, in large part because it tells people that it doesn’t deal with the issue.²¹⁶ This position is troubling because it suggests that the issue of child recruitment—although clearly within the terms of their mandate, involving as it does the violations enumerated in the cease-fire agreement (namely, intimidation, abduction and harassment) not to mention other violations not specifically enumerated in their mandate, but which nonetheless constitute violations of international law—is not significant enough to be vigorously monitored.  

One monitor told us: “We are here on the invitation of the parties…. We don’t see public statements as part of what we do.”²¹⁷  Yet the head of the SLMM has issued two public statements on political killings as a threat to the ceasefire.²¹⁸ It has issued no such statements regarding child recruitment.

One approach to deal with the various aspects of the SLMM mandate would be to separate the technical monitoring of the cease-fire and the human rights monitoring functions of the SLMM.  In order to do this, the SLMM should establish a human rights unit, dedicated to systematically monitoring the violations of international law stipulated in their mandate and staffed with trained human rights monitors. 

In the absence of such a unit, SLMM leadership must highlight the problem of child recruitment to its monitors.  One monitor, who chose to remain anonymous, said that most of the monitors do not understand issues of human rights: “They [the monitors] think of human rights as something soft and fuzzy, without shape, and so it makes them nervous to engage the issues.”²¹⁹

Another criticism against the SLMM is that there is no link between the SLMM and the local population.  The SLMM responds to this charge by saying that its mandate is limited to dialogue with the government and the LTTE.  However, any serious follow through on its mandate, particularly article 2.1, would mean that the SLMM would have to have some dialogue with the local victimized population. 

The lack of dialogue between the SLMM and others was made clear during Human Rights Watch’s interviews.  In Batticaloa, following the increase in recruitments during temple festivals as described above, international organizations agreed to step up monitoring at the temples.  The SLMM monitors in Batticaloa were not aware of such an initiative, and had not been invited to a meeting during which this protection issue was discussed. One monitor conceded that the SLMM does not have good local partnerships with other groups and that this was something which impeded their ability to gather information ²²⁰