Many former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), now on exile in Europe, are willing to participate in the proposed transitional justice mechanisms in Sri Lanka on alleged violations of human rights during the final phase of the civil war, if their safety and anonymity are guaranteed.
This is among the findings of a survey undertaken by the International Truth & Justice Project (ITJP), Sri Lanka, which is affiliated to the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa.
The survey covered 75 Tamils living in four European countries, of whom ex-cadres of the LTTE accounted for 54. Women constituted 26 per cent of the entire group.
Almost all the interviewees fled Sri Lanka for Europe after the end of the civil war in May 2009. A quarter of them had been through the Sri Lanka government’s rehabilitation programme for former LTTE cadres but had “found it impossible to survive” in the country after being released, according to a report prepared by the ITJP.
Seventy-three per cent of the interviewees alleged that they had been subjected to torture by the security forces after the fighting stopped and 54 per cent to rape or other forms of sexual violence.
The survey’s findings were released on Friday night, a few days before the commencement of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s two-week-long session in Geneva. An oral update is expected to be presented on June 29 on the status of implementation of the October 2015 resolution.
