David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

DHAKA, Bangladesh – The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organizations as a “government death squad”, leaked U.S. embassy cables have revealed.  Death Squad, or RAB (Rapid Action Battalion), members have been taught “interviewing techniques” and “rules of engagement” by the UK authorities for 18 months, according to the leaked cables.  Another cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB, and that it would be illegal under U.S. law to do so knowing the battalion commits gross human rights violations with impunity.

Pervasive claims have alleged that they operated an “arrest-interrogate-kill” policy towards alleged criminals.

The RAB was set up, 9,000 strong in 2004; RAB is accused of more than 550 killings. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnaping and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.

A cable dated, May 2009, published by the Guardian, that the US ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, wrote: “The US and UK representatives reviewed our ongoing training to make the RAB a more transparent, accountable and human-rights compliant paramilitary force.

Sabir Mustafa, BBC Bengali editor, say’s several hundred criminal suspects have died in RAB custody since 2005, and there are strong grounds to doubt what the unit’s claims, that these deaths occurred as a result of “encounters” or “cross-fire”.

The lack of prosecution for these fatalities is creating the impression that they operate under the guise of impunity, even though killings by RAB have been declining since 2008, but have not stopped completely.

Brad Adams, the organization’s Asia director, said: “RAB is a Latin American—style death squad dressed up as an anti—crime force. The British government has let its desire for a functional counter—terrorism partner in Bangladesh blind it to the risks of working with RAB, and the legitimacy that it gives to RAB inside Bangladesh”.

Amnesty International has also repeatedly condemned the RAB, while the Bangladeshi human rights organization Odhikar has scrupulously documented the RAB’s involvement in extra—judicial killings and torture since the creation of the force in 2004.

Successive Bangladeshi governments have promised to end the RAB’s use of murder. The current government promised in its manifesto that it would end all ‘extra judicial killings’, but they have continued following its election two years ago.

Yesterday, the 21^st of December, the RAB announced it had shot dead a 45—year—old man and three men in separate incidents, Anisur Rahman, said to be a member of the Communist party in the west of the country.

One cable describes U.S. Ambassador James Moriarty as saying the battalion is the “enforcement organization best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

British High Commission officials in Dhaka told the BBC that the UK training program for the RAB was due to finish in March 2011.

For more information, please see:

The Hindu – U.K. police trained Bangladesh ‘death squad’ – 22 December 2010

BBC – UK training Bagladesh ‘death squad’ – 22 December 2010

MSNBC – WikiLeaks: U.K. trained ‘death squad’ – 21 December 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Suspected Sri Lankan ‘war criminal’, Shavendra Silva, former top military commander, played an alleged key role in the slaughter of 40,000 civilians and is also accused of clipping down separatist political group leaders, killed at gun-point, in the midst of surrender; now sits in a pool of full diplomatic immunity at the United Nations. The Srilankan government has expressed no interest in holding this human rights abuser accountable, as evident with their latest appointment of a war criminal as ‘deputy permanent U.N. representative’.

“Thousands were killed or starved. There were massive human-rights violations and he’s the No. 1 suspect,” said the investigator, a human-rights group expert who asked not to be identified.

Now, the UN panel has a war criminal, a man with first-hand knowledge of the slayings, coming into the UN to represent Sri-Lanka.

Human-rights groups are outraged that Shavendra Silva, 46, a top ex-military commander, was named Sri Lanka’s deputy permanent U.N. representative in August, after which he moved to New York.

His arrival came a year after his troops defied international pleas and shelled a no-fire zone packed with women, children and elderly refugees, according to observers.

“It’s a slap in the face,” said an investigator familiar with Silva, who last year oversaw the final months of a brutal 26-year civil war against Tamil separatists on the island nation off India’s southeastern tip.

The war started in 1983 after the Tamils, a Hindu ethnic minority, were denied power by the ruling Sinhalese, Buddhists, and formed a violent resistance group, the Tamil Tigers.

Maj. Gen. Shavendra Silva’s presence in New York coincides with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon setting up a panel of experts to advise him on accountability for human rights violations during the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka.

It was after the New York Times published an article critical of the Sri Lankan Government’s appointment of Major General Shavendra Silva as the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN that a journalist questioned the acting Dpt. Spokesman of UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon whether Silva will be interviewed by the expert panel.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a panel of experts to advise him on Sri Lanka’s alleged violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the last stages of the war against LTTE.

He was further questioned on whether the final report of the findings of the Expert Panel will be made public, the Farhan Haq, Acting Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General said that, “We’ll have to see.  As you know, it is an internal body, but it will be up to the Secretary-General to determine what he makes public once he received that information.”

In a phone interview from London, Mr. Keenan said it appeared to be more than a coincidence that Gen. Silva would be appointed to the mission in New York at the same time as Mr. Ban set up the panel of experts.

“So it seems fair to assume that he is trying to influence it, which is the right of the Sri Lankan government. But I think that is disturbing that someone who himself was involved in the very incidents that the U.N. has begun looking into should have any chance to influence the panel’s operations,” Mr. Keenan said.

For more information, please see:

The Washington Times – Sri Lankan war crimes suspect get post as representative to U.N. – 5 December 2010

Live Lanka – UN not sure whether Expert Panel will interview Shavendra Silva – 11 December 2010

FOX news – ‘War criminal’ gets a UN job – 21 November 2010

Free Malayasia Today – ‘War Criminal’ gets a UN job – 8 December 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

 KOTTE, Sri Lanka – In the wake of the U.S. governments least proud moment in history, the scandal known as ‘WikiLeaks’ released earlier this week, have called into question more than the institutional  make-up of a nation. The US embassy cables implicate Sri-Lankan leadership juxtaposed with the massacre of 7,000, following the end of Tamil Tiger uprising or civil ethnic revolution which took ended  just last year.

Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has given credence to calls for an independent analysis of the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

“Thousands of Tamil civilians are estimated to have been killed in a few days during a military bombardment as the 26-year insurgency ended in May last year, as reported by Al Jazeera.

By reports of the US diplomats on the ground in Sri Lanka, they believe the country’s president responsibilities for the mass deaths of ethnic Tamil citizens as the civil war came to a close last year need to be analyzed.

The cable was written by Patricia Butenis, the US ambassador in Colombo and it implicates Mahinda Rajapaksa, his generals and family members.

Butenis wrote candidly in January, that accountability for many of the apparent crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka,” she said, according to WikiLeaks. Gotabaya Rajapakse, the president’s brother, is the defense secretary, himself now implicated.

Due to past allegations, Rajapaksa has resisted external pressure for an international probe into charges that both the rebel Tamil Tigers and the military  have committed violation with the commission of war crimes during the conflict.

His unilateral call for an internal investigation was questioned by Butenis and the surrounding human rights community.

According to the cable, Butenis said that “there are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power.”

The notion of the Tamil Tigers captured during battle receiving due process is alluded to within the cables. As quoted below according to Butenis:

“The Government of Sri Lanka is holding thousands of mid- and lower-level ex-LTTE [Tamil Tiger] combatants for future rehabilitation and/or criminal prosecution. It is unclear whether any such prosecutions will meet international standards.”

Earlier reports indicated that the military forces killed the top Tamil Tiger leadership, in what is understood to be a “four-decade campaign in which they fought for a separate Tamil homeland.”

For more information, please see:

Lanka Journal – Wikileaks: Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa blamed for killings – 3 December 2010

BBC – Wikileaks: Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa blamed for killings – 2 December 2010

Al Jazeera English – Rajapaksa ‘linked to Tamil deaths’ – 2 December 2010

North Korea fired artillery shells onto the South Korean island, killing two civilians (Photo Courtesy of the New York Times)

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SEOUL, REPUBLIC OF KOREA – On Tuesday November 23, North Korea attacked a populated South Korean island near its border, killing two marines and two civilians while injuring dozens of people. Such a provocation was “one of the gravest incidents since the end of the Korean War,” according to Ban Ki moon, the current secretary general at the United nations.

North fired dozens of shells at a South Korean island called Yeonpyeong, which marked the first time since the war that North struck at land-based targets. The rockets destroyed homes and workplaces of civilians who were later placed under temporary asylum homes in the mainland Korea. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea promised to return a “stern” and “strenuous retaliation” if any further provocation ensued.

The attacked island is situated in a disputed area where a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, was sunk in March, killing 46 sailors. An international investigative report blamed North Korea for torpedoing the naval vessel, an accusation which North still denies.

Although skirmishes between the two Koreas are not uncommon, their tense relations have worsened in the recent months especially after the Cheonan incident. To make matters worse, just last week, an American nuclear scientist who visited the North said he had been shown a secret and modern nuclear enrichment facility.

According to Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert and an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, “they [North Korea] want to direct attention to themselves, to say: ‘Look we are here, we are dangerous and we cannot just be ignored,’” The U.S. position had been to engage in talks when there was a prospect of democratization in the North, he said. “Now the chances for democratization are virtually zero, so they have nothing to talk about.”

Many analysts view the continuing provocation by the North as their desperate plea to capture world’s attention as the totalitarian regime goes through the transfer of power from Kim Jong-il to his 3rd son, Kim Jong-un. Such a hard-line stance, they believe, will enhance the military credentials of Kim Jong-un and garner a unified support for his rising to the new leadership. Others link it to the need for food aid, which has been largely denied by South Korea ever since President Lee took office two years ago, and strangled by international and United States sanctions.

The attack on Yeonpyeong came as 70,000 South Korean troops were beginning an annual nationwide military drill called Safeguarding the Nation. This exercise, which had been announced well in advance to the North, has been criticized by Pyongyang as “simulating an invasion of the North” and “a means to provoke a war.”

Many regard China as a key player in easing the tension between two Koreas. China, arguably North Korea’s sole trading partner and political ally, tries to prevent a collapse of the North Korean regime, which has potential to send a flood of refugees over its border. Whether this latest exchange of artilleries will escalate into a full-blown confrontation remains to be seen.

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – Crisis Status’ in South Korea After North Shells Island – 23 November 2010

Bloomberg Businessweek – N. Korea Attack on South Kills Two, Sets Homes Ablaze – 23 November 2010

Bloomberg – UN Chief Ban Ki-moon Condemns North Korea’s Attack on South – 23 November 2010

The Wall Street Journal – China Faces Pivotal Test – 24 November 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

SINGAPORE – 76-year-old British author was jailed on Tuesday for six weeks in Singapore for attacking the judiciary in a book criticizing the city-state’s death penalty.

Alan Shadrake was also fined £9,589 over his book “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock”, which included a profile of Singapore’s executioner who put about 1,000 men and women to death over 47 years.

Shadrack offered a last-minute apology which was dismissed as a ploy by the judge. He will have to serve another two weeks in jail if he fails to pay the fine designed to prevent him profiting from the book.

Convicted on Nov. 3 of scandalizing the court in his book, “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock,” would also be fined 26,371 Singapore dollars ($15,400), in an effort to send “a signal to those who hope to profit from controversy,” said High Court Judge Quentin Loh.

The judge said the author’s technique was to make “claims against a dissembling and selective background of truths and half-truths, and sometimes outright falsehoods.

Singapore’s judicial officials feared that passive readers would interpret Singapore’s government as lacking order and justice.

The case has stressed not just the use of capital punishment in Singapore, but the bigger issue of freedom of speech in a country where opposition is rare.

Human rights groups say the Singaporean authorities too often resort to the courts to silence their critics.

Showing no signs of staying quiet, Alan Shadrake, entered Singapore’s High Court building for his first hearing holding up two fingers in a “V for victory” salute.

“Freedom and democracy for Singapore,” he shouted, as he waited to walk through the security scanners.

The judgment was condemned by Human Rights Watch which said it was a “serious blow” and would have a “chilling effect” on anyone who has differences with the Singapore government.

The book contains interviews with human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers, as well as a profile of Darshan Singh, the former chief executioner at Singapore’s Changi Prison. It claims he executed around 1,000 men and women from 1959 until he retired in 2006.

US based Human Rights Watch and other rights groups had urged Singapore to exonerate the author.

Abner Koh, of the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since independence in 1965, said “certain restrictions are necessary to ensure harmonious living amongst different communities in Singapore”.

Singapore is not used to that kind of open defiance. This tiny state prides itself on being one of the most stable and prosperous nations in Asia.

BBC reports that, it is as if there is an unspoken but clearly understood deal between citizen and state: the system will look after you, as long as you do not question it.

For more information, please see:

Telegraph World News – British author Alan Shadrake jailed in Singapore – 16 November 2010

Wall Street Journal – Singapore Jails U.K. Author – 16 November 2010

BBC – UK author Shadrake jailed for six weeks in Singapore – 16 November 2010