Sri Lanka: Adopt International Inquiry for Aid Worker Killings

Sri Lanka: Adopt International Inquiry for Aid Worker Killings 

On August 4, 2006, 17 Sri Lankan aid workers with the Paris-based international humanitarian agency Action Contre La Faim (ACF) were summarily executed in their office in Mutur, Trincomalee district, following fighting between government security forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for control of the town. The aid workers, 16 Tamils and one Muslim, were engaged in a program to help survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

For three years since the ACF massacre, the Rajapaksa government has put on an elaborate song and dance to bedazzle the international community into believing justice is being done. It’s time the UN and concerned governments say ‘the show is over’ and put into place a serious international inquiry.

James Ross, legal and policy director

On July 14, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, created in November 2006 to investigate 16 major human rights cases, publicly announced its findings in the ACF case. The commission exonerated the Sri Lankan army and navy in the ACF killings, primarily on limited witness testimony that these forces were not in the vicinity at the time. It blamed the killings on either the LTTE or auxiliary police known as home guards. Its full report to the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, remains unpublished.

The commission rejected the detailed findings of the nongovernmental University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), which in April 2008 published eyewitness accounts, weapons analysis, and information on the government security forces that it believes were responsible for the atrocity. However, the commission chair told the media that the commission was hindered by the absence of a witness-protection program and noted that the government blocked video testimonies that would have permitted at-risk witnesses to testify from outside the country.