HRW says both the parties violated human rights in 2006

New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said both the parties have targeted civilians during the last 12 months causing the death of hundreds of civilians as a result.

HRW says increased fighting between the Government forces and the LTTE led to widespread violations of human rights abuses and disappearances.

The HRW 2006 Annual Report has been highly critical of the human rights record of both the parties.

Government accused

The watchdog has accused Sri Lanka military of being implicated in child recruitment while accusing the LTTE of using child soldiers.

	LTTE is accused of killing Kethesh Loganathan

“Government forces were implicated in several massacres of civilians, indiscriminate aerial bombing and shelling, and complicity in the abduction of children for use as combatants”.

Military and the “associated armed groups” were involved with “disappearances” of mainly Tamil civilians in the north and the capital, Colombo, says the HRW.

Impunity by the government for perpetrators of human rights abuses was another major concern.

“The government has frequently initiated investigations into alleged rights violations by government security forces, but rarely have these investigations led to prosecutions, let alone convictions.

The Sri Lankan armed forces have engaged in indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombing with little regard to the expected harm caused to civilians. For example, in the fighting over Mutur town in early August, indiscriminate shelling by the military resulted in the deaths of at least 49 civilians, mostly Muslims, who had sought shelter in schools HRW report

A particular impediment has been the failure of the government to institute meaningful witness protection, which would encourage witnesses to politically motivated crimes to come forward”.

Sri Lanka military is also accused of grossly violating the international human rights law by targeting civilian populations.

LTTE accused

Human rights record of the Tamil Tigers is no different to that of the Government, according to the Annual Report.

“The LTTE was responsible for direct attacks on civilians with landmines and suicide bombings, targeted killing of political opponents, and the continued recruitment of children into their forces”.

Tamil Tigers are responsible for the “disappearance” of many Tamil civilians, HRW says.

The LTTE’s landmine attack on June 15, 2006 on a bus in Anuradhapura killed 67 civilians, including many children. In August the LTTE diverted to territory under its control some thirty thousand displaced persons fleeing Mutur and detained a dozen young men, who remain missing and are feared dead

The Tigers are accused of seriously violating the CFA signed in February 2002 by threatening the truce monitors after LTTE was banned by the EU.

“When the LTTE then demanded that EU members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission remove their monitors, they promptly did so, although their removal violated the ceasefire agreement”.

Tamil Tigers are also accused of targeting the civilians violating both the CFA and the international human rights law.

Extrajudicial Killings

Both the parties of the conflict are accused by the HRW of extrajudicial killings and abductions.

The Tamil Tigers have killed more than 200 Tamils, mainly political opponents, since the CFA was signed in 2002, according to HRW.

	TNA accused government of killing MP Nadarajah Raviraj

“Alleged LTTE cadres shot and killed eight Sinhalese men in April, including three sixteen-year-old boys, while they worked in their paddy fields outside a village in Trincomalee. An LTTE car bombing on August 8 in Colombo injured a Tamil member of parliament and killed a bodyguard and a three-year-old child. On August 12, suspected LTTE gunmen shot and killed Kethesh Loganathan, the highly respected Tamil deputy head of the government’s Peace Secretariat, at his home in Colombo”.

Sri Lanka military also accused of serious incidents of killings and abductions.

These include “the summary execution of five Tamil students in Trincomalee on January 2, the “disappearance” of eight young men from a Hindu temple in Jaffna on May 6, the execution-style slaying of five Tamil fishermen on Mannar island on June 17, and the killing of 11 Muslims in Pottuvil on September 18. The pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance blamed the government for the murder of parliamentarian Nadarajah Raviraj in Colombo on November 10”.