Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Population

SRI LANKA: Probe French Aid Agency For Massacre – Gov&#39t

IPS Correspondents

TRINCOMALEE, Aug 15 2007 (IPS) - A year after 17 workers of the French aid agency Action Against Hunger (ACF) were lined up and shot dead in the eastern town of Muttur, no one is sure who is responsible for the gruesome massacre – government forces or Tamil separatist rebels.

As the Sri Lankan army and the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) battled for control over the town, carrion crows flocking over the ACF offices drew attention to the bodies strewn around the compound. Despite two high-level investigations and abundant international attention, no suspect has been arrested nor any indictments served.

Instead, charges and counter-charges continue to fly fast and thick between government bodies and international observers. And now the head of the government’s Peace Secretariat, Rajiva Wijesinha, is calling for the ACF itself to be investigated for advising its slain workers to remain in the besieged town.

"I have argued before that we have not dealt firmly enough with the original reason for the tragedy, which was the utter irresponsibility of the ACF organisation in putting such workers at risk," Wijesinha wrote to disaster management and human rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. "I would therefore respectfully request that the government ask that an independent inquiry be conducted into the circumstances."

Samarasinghe was non-committal on whether such an inquiry would be initiated when asked to comment on it by IPS.

Wijesinha’s call to investigate the ACF, however, has been supported by defence spokesman and cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella. ‘’The 17 aid workers were given instructions to move out before the assassinations,’’ he said.

Wijesinha has also written to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) seeking a formal apology for its allegations that there was evidence of tampering related to the inquiry. ICJ had said in June that its observer felt that a bullet fragment recovered from one of the victims may have been switched.

Last week, the government countered that the Australian expert on whose statements the ICJ had based its observations had since denied saying there was tampering of evidence. "I am writing therefore to request that ICJ issues a formal apology for its false allegations. In an earlier and more decent age such professional incompetence would have been a reason for resignation, but I suspect this is too much to expect," Wijesinha said in his letter to the ICJ.

Where the truth lies remains unascertained but it was embarrassing for the government since they came just days after U.N. under-secretary for humanitarian affairs John Holmes was quoted by the Reuters wire agency as saying that Sri Lanka was one of the most dangerous places for aid workers.

The government reacted to that report by saying that Holmes had not made any such observation during discussions with government officials or with President Mahinda Rajapakse. And it has since been going through the motions of seeking verification from the U.N. on Holmes’ statements through its Permanent Representative in Geneva.

Ironically, the current round of letter exchanges and allegations has had the effect of once again bringing the ACF murders into the limelight.

It was the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), staffed by Nordic nationals, that first indicated it had evidence suggesting the involvement of government troops.

That claim, a month after the massacre, was rejected outright by the government. But it was repeated by former SLMM head Ulf Henricsson three months later at a commemoration in Paris organised by ACF. Henricsson headed the SLMM when the massacres took place.

The SLMM is tasked with monitoring a five-year ceasefire between the Tamil Tigers and the government that now exists only on paper. Fighting in the last 20 months has killed over 4,500 people, including 1,500 civilians – adding to the over 65,000 dead in the two-decade-old ethnic conflict.

Until last week the ACF itself remained outside the war of letters, though it had raised issues about lack of transparency and witness protection that, it said, hampered investigation.

But Wijesingha’s letter has now drawn in the aid agency. "ACF has expended much energy on focusing attention on the assumed culpability of Sri Lankan forces (in the murders)," the letter said. ‘’Such emotional propaganda, including the advertisements it takes out at great expense in France, are no substitute for the compensation, based on European norms, owed to these victims of negligence if not callousness."

The ACF office in Colombo said that it was open to an international inquiry. "ACF fully agrees to cooperate, and to answer questions related to the Muttur killings, within the framework of an independent and international inquiry," ACF’s Lucile Grosjean told IPS.

But she stressed that the most important concern for the French charity remained the prosecution of the culprits. "The core issue remains the identification and prosecution of the perpetrators through an effective criminal investigation led by the Sri Lankan government," she said.

In fact, ACF had taken pains to ensure that the one year commemoration held on Aug. 6 had limited publicity. Media was not allowed to cover the main event in the capital, Colombo, attended by Holmes and Samarasinghe, and to other events in Trincomalee and Batticaloa.

"I don’t know the reason (why the media was not allowed), you have to ask that from ACF," minister Samarasinghe said later. But the government finds itself in the uneasy glare of public scrutiny once again, a year after one of the worst tragedies of the island’s bloody conflict.