U.N. failed to protect civilians during
Sri Lanka's bloody war end, says report
Civilians arrive in
Puthukkudiyirippu, northern Sri Lanka April 22, 2009 after fleeing an
area controlled by Tamil Tigers. Picture taken April 22, 2009.
REUTERS/Stringer
NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United
Nations failed in its mandate to protect Sri Lankan civilians caught up
in the final phases of the Indian Ocean island's bloody war, a new
report has said.
Sri Lanka's civil conflict ended in May 2009 in cataclysmic
final battle in which government forces surrounded Tamil rebels on a
tiny strip of coastal land, where the separatists kept hundreds of
thousands of civilians as human shields.
A 2011 U.N. probe estimates about 40,000 people were killed
in the final phases of the war, mostly by army shelling and
bombardments. Sri Lanka has rejected the allegation and claims in its
own investigation that around 7,000 people died.
Written by two Sri Lankan charities, the report said despite
signs of escalating violence, U.N. staff "consistently preferred to err
on the side of caution in responding to the crisis."
"The UN system as a whole made little effort to prevent the humanitarian tragedy that ensued," said the Narratives III report.
"They failed to diagnose the nature of the problem at the
early stages and were incapable of designing a coordinated strategy to
separate the civilians from the LTTE (rebels) and enable them to move
into the government controlled areas."
The report - by the Marga Institute and the Consortium of
Humanitarian Agencies - contradicts earlier reports by the U.N. and
human rights groups which puts the blame for civilian deaths largely on
government forces.
Instead, it holds the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) primarily responsible due to its strategy of holding civilians
captive and using them as shields.
It said it was necessary to question whether the U.N.'s
surveillance of the actions of the LTTE was adequate and whether more
decisive action could have been taken to prevent civilians being used in
this manner.
The U.N. office in Colombo declined to comment on the report's findings.
U.N. LACKED RESPONSIBILITY
U.N. LACKED RESPONSIBILITY
The report questions various actions taken by the U.N. such
the almost immediate relocation of all its staff out of the war zone, saying
that even though the government advised the U.N. to leave due to safety
risks, the organisation should have negotiated to stay.
"In the context of both the lack of contestation of the
government's request and the absence of any negotiation for further time
to be provided, the report concludes that the U.N. failed in its
protection mandate by relocating," it states.
The report said the U.N. lacked a strategic approach to
minimising the death toll. It said the U.N. should have encouraged
civilians who were fleeing with the rebels to cross over to government
controlled area, adding that this would have avoided people being used
as human shields.
It attributed some of the failures to staff on the ground
which it said had little or no expertise in analysing military
operations in terms of their humanitarian risks or in protecting
civilians.
The report also said the U.N.'s complex bureaucracy and
decision-making processes prevented vital information from being
channelled to senior officials with expertise.
For example, during a 10-month window of opportunity for the
U.N. to roll out a comprehensive plan for civilian evacuation, no
information on the potential risks that civilians would eventually face
was transmitted to U.N. headquarters, it said.
"The U.N. bureaucracy and parochial decision-making
processes at the time prevented such a plan - a plan that could have
significantly reduced the number of civilian casualties during the
latter states of the war," it said.
The U.N. human rights office in July embarked on a
controversial probe into alleged war crimes. The move has angered
President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government which says it will not
cooperate with U.N. investigators.
தரவு : விசுவநாதன்
