Leaders from 52 countries and the international media will soon converge in the Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) from 15-17 November.
The Sri Lankan government will surely be using this chance to show the world how far the country has come since the 26 year long war with the Tamil Tigers ended in 2009.
And so the preparations begin.
In a far-reaching beautification campaign, the roads are being paved, buildings touched up, and President Mahinda Rajapaka’s smiling face has appeared on billboards across town. Residents have been asked to clean up their properties, and to stay away from the expensive and refurbished hotels reserved for foreigners.
Sri Lanka’s government is good at this – promoting a narrative of post-war peace and prosperity, hiding the grim reality of continuing human rights abuses. Scratch the surface, and a very different Sri Lanka will emerge.
It has spent US$ millions on public relations companies to convince the world that the horrors of the conflict are a thing of the past, and that reports of ongoing violations and crackdowns are nothing more than slander.
Figures tell a different story.The United Nations estimates that some 40,000 people may have been killed during the final phase of the armed conflict - the majority allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan army.
The government has rejected calls for independent investigations or to bring to justice those responsible for such alleged war crimes. Witnesses to government violations have reported repeated threats from the security forces.
In September, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated the international community “will have a duty” to set up its own mechanism to investigate the allegations, if Sri Lanka hadn’t taken steps by March 2014, towards accountability for these alleged abuses.
A special ire is reserved for media outlets criticising the government’s policies or its conduct during the armed conflict. Freedom of expression is criminalised and Sri Lanka’s authorities violently repress dissent, calling it treason. Critical journalists continue to be attacked, websites blocked, and their offices raided and burned down.
At least 15 media personnel have been killed since 2006, and according to Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement, more than 80 journalists have gone into exile since 2005.
On 30 October, the Free Media Movement was holding a summit in Colombo to discuss freedom of expression “challenges”, when halfway through the meeting, immigration officers and police stopped the proceedings. Two Australian representatives from the International Federation of Journalists were subjected to lengthy questioning – ostensibly on visa issues, but they were also reportedly questioned about their contacts and previous work on media freedom in the country.
The detention of Australian Senator Lee Rhiannon late last week is yet another example of the Sri Lankan government’s systematic silencing of critics, international and in country alike.
The BBC reported that in March the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation blocked its news broadcasts of UN Human Rights Council members’ calls on Sri Lanka to conduct independent and credible investigations in alleged war crimes. According to the BBC, their broadcasts were replaced with other coverage supporting the Sri Lankan government’s position.
Government attempts to silence critical voices is also illustrated by the Public Affairs Minister Mervyn Silva’s public threat in March 2012 to 'break the limbs' of three human rights advocates for attending a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
In early October, the government banned protests, marches and the display of banners in Colombo and other locations where international CHOGM delegates are expected to visit.
A 2010 constitutional amendment has tightened the government’s political grip of important and relatively independent bodies, including the Human Rights Commission, the Judicial Service Commission and the National Police Commission, by placing them under Presidential control.
The head of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court, Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, was unfairly impeached in January, triggering hundreds of lawyers to take to the streets, backed by the 11,000-member national Bar Association. Their demonstrations were threatened by stick wielding assailants while the police stood by, with lawyers and judges later receiving anonymous death threats.
With the second highest reported rate of disappearances in the world, many that happened during the armed conflict, this problem continues to this day in Sri Lanka with opposition politicians, journalists and activists never seen again.
This even has a term now – “white van kidnappings”, where people who challenge the government’s narrative are last seen being taken away in trademark white vans.
Over 12,000 complaints of enforced disappearances have been submitted to the UN since the 1980s. But the actual number of disappeared is probably much higher, with tens of thousands of additional alleged cases.
The boycott of both the Canadian and Indian Prime Ministers are signals from the international community that past and ongoing violations need to be independently investigated and perpetrators brought to justice.
To date, the Commonwealth has stuck its head in the sand, remaining shamefully silent on Sri Lanka’s human rights crisis.
In appointing Sri Lanka as Chair of the Commonwealth for the next two years, the Commonwealth will give Sri Lanka an undeserved seal of approval, jeopardising its own credibility on the international stage.
In such a position of authority, Sri Lanka may even be responsible for monitoring human rights violations in other member countries - a bitter-tasting irony.
World leaders must sift the facts from the spin, and hold the Sri Lankan government to account for the sake of the tens of thousands of Sri Lankans killed, tortured or abducted - and the many still at risk today.
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