By Elizabeth Breslin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka- As Sri Lanka prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary of independence, its human rights record is in the spotlight.  Attention is also focused on the country due to a bombing of a bus on Saturday and then the bombing of a train station on Sunday by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (also known as the Tamil Tigers or LTTE), killing a total of 29 people and wounding over 100.

In its recently-released World Report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that in the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lanka government, little consideration is shown for civilians.  HRW reported that the two sides “violate international humanitarian law… by indiscriminately firing on civilian areas and unnecessarily preventing the delivery humanitarian aid.”

In 2007, Sri Lanka enacted further Emergency Regulations giving the government broad powers to arrest and detain citizens without charge.  The government has used this power to arbitrarily arrest ethnic Tamils, journalists, and political activists.

Furthermore, HRW reported that “[g]overnment security forces are implicated in extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, forcibly returning internally displaced persons… to unsafe areas, restricting media freedoms, apparent complicity with the abusive Karuna group, and widespread impunity for serious human rights violations.”

HRW found that the world community was concerned over the situation in Sri Lanka during 2007, but that action was “slow and lacked cohesion.”

Many countries have recently suspended aid due to concerns over Sri Lanka’s human rights record.  The US government has suspended over 110 million USD, the UK has suspended over 3 million USD, and Sri Lanka’s top donor, Japan, threatened to cut off aid as well if the violence continues.

Ethnic turmoil has affected the country for more than 30 years, and the separatist struggle has taken over 60,000 lives.  The civil war has emerged as Asia’s longest ethnic conflict.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – S Lanka anniversary amid tensions – 4 February 2008

AFP – Sri Lanka marks freedom day amid bombs and bloodshed – 3 February 2008

Nidahasa – Global Concern Over Worsening Human Rights Record of Sri Lanka – 1 February 2008

AFP – International action slow to stem Sri Lanka bloodshed: HRW – 1 February 2008

Human Rights Watch – World Report 2008: Sri Lanka Events of 2007 – 31 January 2008