[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 493 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 493

    Expressing the sense of the Senate in support of the peaceful, 
    democratic, and economic aspirations of the people of Sri Lanka.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           December 12, 2023

    Mr. Cardin (for himself and Mr. Risch) submitted the following 
  resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
    Expressing the sense of the Senate in support of the peaceful, 
    democratic, and economic aspirations of the people of Sri Lanka.

Whereas, in recent years, Sri Lanka has undergone a political, economic, and 
        humanitarian crisis causing millions of Sri Lankans to live in dire 
        conditions, with the World Food Program estimating that 17 percent of 
        the population is experiencing food insecurity and severe shortages of 
        medicine and fuel;
Whereas the crisis in Sri Lanka stems from factors such as corruption, financial 
        mismanagement, and failures in the rule of law, further exacerbated by 
        the Government of Sri Lanka entering into expensive projects involving 
        predatory lending by entities associated with the People's Republic of 
        China;
Whereas, beginning in March 2022, tens of thousands of Sri Lankans participated 
        in largely peaceful protests lasting more than 100 days, leading to the 
        resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the appointment of Ranil 
        Wickremesinghe as the new President of Sri Lanka;
Whereas the Wickremesinghe government, citing economic constraints, indefinitely 
        postponed local elections scheduled for March 9, 2023, in violation of 
        the Constitution of Sri Lanka;
Whereas, on February 20, 2023, thousands of largely peaceful protestors 
        demonstrated against the decision to postpone local elections, to which 
        the Sri Lankan police responded by firing tear gas and water cannons;
Whereas the Government of Sri Lanka continues to repress dissent and protest, 
        conduct surveillance and harass members of civil society, and use the 
        Prevention of Terrorism Act to target political opposition members of 
        ethnic and religious minority groups, activists, and journalists;
Whereas the Government of Sri Lanka continues to participate in and facilitate 
        the illegal appropriation of land in the North and East, areas of 
        historical habitation of Tamil speaking peoples and various ethnic and 
        religious groups;
Whereas the Government of Sri Lanka refuses to conduct transparent and 
        independent investigations into credible allegations of corruption, 
        historic atrocities, and other gross violations of human rights against 
        Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim communities, and the United Nations and 
        others have recognized that longstanding impunity for corruption and 
        other human rights violations and abuses is a root cause of the current 
        crisis and that many actors responsible for the current crisis have been 
        implicated in abuses dating back to the civil war and the JVP 
        insurrection;
Whereas, for more than 30 years, Sri Lanka was enveloped in a civil war in 
        which, according to United Nations reports, tens of thousands of Sri 
        Lankans died and thousands more were raped, tortured, forcibly 
        disappeared, or went missing;
Whereas United Nations reports maintain that members of the Liberation Tigers of 
        Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and members of the Government and security services 
        of Sri Lanka were implicated in horrific atrocities and human rights 
        violations and abuses against Sri Lankan civilians during the civil war;
Whereas, on multiple occasions, the Government of Sri Lanka has publicly 
        committed to pursuing meaningful justice and accountability for 
        conflict-related crimes and grievances, including in President Mahinda 
        Rajapaksa's May 2009 joint statement with United Nations Secretary-
        General Ban Ki-Moon and in the government of then-Prime Minister Ranil 
        Wickremesinghe's cosponsoring of United Nations Human Rights Council 
        resolution 30/1, committing to a holistic transitional justice strategy, 
        including a commission for truth, justice, reconciliation, and non-
        recurrence and a judicial mechanism to prosecute violations and abuses 
        of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law;
Whereas, in January 2016, under then-Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, the 
        Government of Sri Lanka established a Consultation Task Force on 
        Reconciliation Mechanisms led by respected members of Sri Lankan civil 
        society, which spoke to more than 7,000 Sri Lankans and issued a 700-
        page report with findings and recommendations about what the Sri Lankan 
        people wanted from the Sri Lankan government in relation to justice and 
        reconciliation, including recommendations supporting international 
        involvement in certain transitional justice mechanisms;
Whereas successive Sri Lankan governments have failed to live up to those 
        commitments and address the desire of Sri Lankan victims and survivors 
        for meaningful justice and accountability for the atrocities, and in 
        March 2020, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's administration withdrew the 
        Government of Sri Lanka's commitment to implement Human Rights Council 
        resolution 30/1;
Whereas the majority of the LTTE leadership were killed or disappeared during 
        the civil war and therefore cannot stand trial for their crimes, and 
        despite evidence implicating Sri Lankan government officials and 
        security forces in atrocity crimes committed against Sri Lankan 
        civilians during the war, no such officials or forces have faced justice 
        for their crimes;
Whereas, in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the Department of State imposed visa 
        restrictions against Sri Lankan officials for their involvement in gross 
        violations of human rights, including torture and inhumane punishment 
        during the civil war, but successive Sri Lankan governments have 
        promoted and empowered those same individuals;
Whereas, in 2021 and 2022, the United States cosponsored United Nations Human 
        Rights Council resolutions 46/1 and 51/1, mandating that the United 
        Nations collect, analyze, and preserve information and evidence of gross 
        violations of human rights and serious violations of international 
        humanitarian law in Sri Lanka for future accountability processes; and
Whereas, in September 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human 
        Rights, Volker Turk, issued a report that noted, ``The 2022 economic 
        crisis is a demonstration of the indivisibility of human rights and how 
        impunity, corruption and the weakening of democratic and rule of law 
        institutions ultimately impacted the economic situation. In order to 
        achieve a path to recovery and sustainable development Sri Lanka will 
        need to address the longer-term serious governance and accountability 
        deficits, as well as the continuing legacy of the armed conflict.'': 
        Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) supports the peaceful, democratic, and economic 
        aspirations of the people of Sri Lanka;
            (2) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to hold free and fair 
        local and provincial elections without further delay;
            (3) urges the Government and security forces of Sri Lanka 
        to respect the rights of all Sri Lankans, including the right 
        to protest peacefully, associate freely, and commemorate their 
        dead;
            (4) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to institute 
        meaningful security sector reform, including by reducing the 
        deployment of security forces across the North and East to 
        appropriate peacetime levels, and ensure those credibly 
        implicated in human rights abuses are removed from positions of 
        authority;
            (5) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to promote an 
        inclusive, pluralistic Sri Lanka through structural reforms and 
        confidence-building measures to address corruption, nepotism, 
        outsized expenditures on the military, minority 
        disenfranchisement, impunity, and other issues that hamper the 
        long-term potential growth of Sri Lanka;
            (6) welcomes Sri Lanka's newly passed anticorruption 
        legislation and calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure 
        that investigations and prosecutions of corrupt officials can 
        move forward independently and impartially;
            (7) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to strengthen the 
        rule of law, including by respecting and reinforcing the 
        independence of the judiciary and independent institutions;
            (8) welcomes the October 2022 passage of the 21st Amendment 
        package by the Parliament of Sri Lanka as an initial step 
        toward reducing centralized power and encourages further 
        measures to alleviate a lack of meaningful checks and balances;
            (9) welcomes the initial agreement by the International 
        Monetary Fund to loan Sri Lanka $3,000,000,000 to help address 
        the ongoing economic crisis and urges the Government of Sri 
        Lanka to address the recommendations of the International 
        Monetary Fund's September 30, 2023, staff report, which notes 
        that the ``absence of visible progress on addressing corruption 
        and holding officials to account for past behaviour raises 
        popular concerns that officials will continue to enjoy impunity 
        for their misconduct'';
            (10) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to immediately 
        repeal or amend the Prevention of Terrorism Act and ensure that 
        the Act or any counterterrorism laws passed to replace it are 
        aligned with international norms and reflect inclusive 
        consultation with Sri Lankan civil society;
            (11) calls for an immediate moratorium on the appropriation 
        of land facilitated by the Government of Sri Lanka in the North 
        and East and restitution of appropriated lands in a way that 
        guarantees effective access and productive use;
            (12) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to fully implement 
        the Constitution of Sri Lanka, including the 13th Amendment's 
        commitments to devolve specified powers over land, the police, 
        education, health, agriculture, housing, and finances to the 
        provinces;
            (13) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to reach a consensus 
        with opposition parties on behalf of all Sri Lankans, including 
        Tamils, Indian-origin Tamils, Muslims, and members of other 
        religious and ethnic minority groups, to address longstanding 
        issues, including those relating to human rights violations and 
        abuses, disenfranchisement, justice, and accountability, and 
        work toward a sustainable political solution that promotes 
        reconciliation;
            (14) calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to accept and use 
        Sri Lanka's own Consultation Task Force report as the basis for 
        taking action in support of justice, accountability, and 
        reconciliation, and further calls on the government to design 
        and implement all justice measures, including a potential truth 
        commission, with input from, the participation of, and support 
        from victims and survivors; and
            (15) urges the Government of Sri Lanka to engage positively 
        and cooperatively with the United Nations' Human Rights 
        Council, agencies, and special procedure mandate holders and 
        facilitate the implementation of their recommendations on good 
        governance, rule of law, corruption, justice, accountability, 
        and human rights.
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