Concerns over Sri Lanka’s human rights record recently came to the fore when Canada and India took separate decisions to boycott the Commonwealth summit in the country’s capital Colombo. Their protests against alleged human rights abuses in Sri Lanka followed the defeat of the Tamil rebels in 2009 after a bloody 26-year conflict that claimed more than 100,000 lives. Analysts say the majority died at the hands of the Sri Lankan army in the last few months before the end of the war.
When Sri Lanka was chosen in April as the host country for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, Canada publicly opposed the decision – its foreign minister John Baird saying in a statement that Sri Lanka had failed to uphold the Commonwealth’s fundamental values of “freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and good governance”.
Sri Lanka’s government continues to deny that it committed gross human rights abuses – yet it appears British Prime Minister David Cameron is paying lip service to the concerns expressed by both Canada and India.
Although Cameron has called for an independent inquiry into the deaths and also publicly stated that the Sri Lankan government has “serious questions” to answer, his backing of Colombo’s hosting of the summit shows a total lack of commitment on the part of the UK to holding its leaders to account.
Metro Éireann supports the decision of Canadian and Indian governments to boycott the meeting, and strongly urges the international community to put more pressure on the Sri Lankan government to make amends.
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