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World need to pay more attention to the human rights of the people in Northeast

Question: How does the international community view the human rights violations committed by the Sri Lankan State against the Tamil people?

Answer: The term “human rights” can be interpreted at three levels. The first level meaning is the perception of ordinary people that human rights imply a peaceful life that respects the dignity of all people. The second level meaning derives from the various United Nations human rights declarations, conventions and protocols. One cannot completely ignore the fact that these UN instruments are formulated under the direct supervision of the States. The third level meaning originates from campaigns and comments on selected clauses from the UN instruments carried out by the various human rights organizations.

Majority of the people of the world are heavily influenced by the third level interpretation mentioned above. The perception of ordinary people which is the first level interpretation of the term “human rights” is masked by this dominance of the third level interpretation. This is why there is amnesia in the world concerning the human rights of the Tamil people.

Neither the international community nor the international human rights organizations are showing readiness to handle the human rights violations by the Sri Lankan state forces against the Tamil people without bias.

Question: There are various statistics on the civilian deaths in Northeast caused by the ethnic conflict. Do you have any authoritative figures?

Answer: NESOHR is working with the Northeast Statistics Department in collecting and collating these statistics. Table 1 shows the summary of the data collected to date. We must remember that the Northeast society is dispersed around the world as refugees and immigrants as a result of the war and destruction. Therefore it is indeed a challenge to collect full statistics from this society. We therefore cannot treat the above table as complete.

Question: Do you have statistics on the places of worship that were destroyed by the Sri Lankan State forces?

Answer: There are innumerable instances when the State security forces deliberately destroyed places of worship in the Northeast. For all the three religious communities in the Northeast, that is Hindu, Muslim and Christian, places of worship were the focal point of their cultural life.

We must therefore view the deliberate destruction of the places of worship as an act of cultural genocide. Proving the point is the data on the number of places of worship destroyed by the Sri Lankan security forces in the Northeast as shown in Table 2. Data from other sources indicate that 2355 places of worship have been destroyed or damaged. Further details on these are being collected.

Question: Do you have information on the number of schools destroyed by the security forces and the number of schools currently occupied by the security forces?

Answer: The destruction of the educational institutions is an important aspect of the cultural genocide by the State forces in Northeast. One can quote the following as evidence of the destruction of the educational institutions in Northeast: the 40% teacher shortage in Tamil medium schools which the government ignored for the last 10 years, the production of lower quality Tamil medium textbooks by the government Education Division, and the inadequate procedures in place to deliver the textbooks in time to Tamil medium students. NESOHR has produced a human rights report on the production of poor quality Tamil medium textbooks. This can be viewed at our website at www.nesohr.org.

Many schools were destroyed as a result of bombing by the Sri Lanka air force. On top of that many schools are not functioning due to the declaration of High Security Zones (HSZ). Table 3 shows the number of schools that are not functioning due to the declaration of HSZ.

It is due to this deliberate destruction of the educational institutions in Northeast that the standard of education in Northeast has fallen to an alarming level.

Question: Do you have statistics on the HSZ occupied by the Sri Lankan military?

Answer: We should view the extensive occupation of public and private civilian spaces in Northeast by the Sri Lankan military as yet another aspect of the cultural genocide of a people. Table 3 shows the summary statistics on the HSZ occupied by the Sri Lankan military.

Question: Does NESOHR have any plans to raise human rights awareness among the people?

Answer: NESOHR considers the denial of right to self determination to the people of Northeast as the main underlying cause for the violation of human rights here. On that basis NESOHR has prepared a small booklet and a presentation on the human rights violations in Northeast and uses this resource to conduct workshops among senior school students and office workers.

Question: Is there a working relationship between NESOHR and the Sri Lanka Human rights Commission?

Answer: A good and close working relationship between NESOHR and the Sri Lanka Human rights Commission will go a long way in promoting the human rights of the people in this island. Presently this relationship is in its very early stage. We believe that this will be strengthened and expanded in due course.

Question: What is your view on State Terrorism?

Answer: UN instruments lay the responsibility for protecting and promoting the human rights squarely on the State. Those who comment on human rights frequently fail to emphasize this important point. The Sri Lankan State with its 60 year history is considered as one of the States with the worst human rights record.

Question: How can people bring their cases of human rights violations to NESOHR?

Answer: People can come to the NESOHR office at, Karadippokku Junction, Kilinochchi to lodge complaints of human rights violation. They can also lodge a complaint by post with all the needed documentation. NESOHR’s main goal is to receive and investigate complaints received from the people. NESOHR has received 318 complaints as at July 2005 and it has resolved 205 of them in a just and satisfactory manner. Actions are being taken on the remaining complaints.

17 December 2005

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