[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SRI LANKA'S DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION: A NEW ERA FOR THE U.S.-SRI LANKA
RELATIONSHIP
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 9, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-215
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
--------
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
MATT SALMON, Arizona Chairman
DANA ROHRABACHER, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio AMI BERA, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Ms. Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow, Asian Studies Center,
The Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy,
The Heritage Foundation........................................ 6
Ms. Kara L. Bue, founding partner, Armitage International........ 16
Nimmi Gowrinathan, Ph.D., visiting professor, Colin Powell Center
for Civic and Global Leadership, City College of New York, City
University of New York......................................... 24
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Ms. Lisa Curtis: Prepared statement.............................. 8
Ms. Kara L. Bue: Prepared statement.............................. 19
Nimmi Gowrinathan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement..................... 28
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 38
Hearing minutes.................................................. 39
SRI LANKA'S DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION:
A NEW ERA FOR THE U.S.- SRI LANKA
RELATIONSHIP
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Matt
Salmon (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Salmon. Subcommittee will come to order.
Members will be permitted to submit written statements to
be included in the official hearing record. Without objection,
the hearing record will remain open for 5 calendar days to
allow statements, questions and extraneous materials for the
record, subject to the length limitation in rules.
I would like to begin my remarks by offering my sincere
condolences to those who recently lost loved ones and sustained
property damage in Sri Lanka and across South Asia due to
Cyclone Roanu.
I wish for a speedy recovery for the Sri Lankan people and
hope our newly invigorated development relationship that we're
going to discuss today can help meet some of the challenges
left in the wake of the storm.
Sri Lanka's lengthy and tortuous civil war between the
majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils of the north and
east ended in 2009 but the country remains challenged by deep
divisions.
Sri Lanka's prior leader, President Rajapaksa, steered the
country in an authoritarian direction which included
allegations of pervasive human rights abuses, rampant
corruption and the failure to follow the rule of law.
In 2015, the Sri Lankan people chose a new path with the
election of President Sirisena and Prime Minister
Wickremesinghe. There's an opportunity for a new era of
democratic reforms and enhanced U.S.-Sri Lankan relations.
Relations between the U.S. and Sri Lanka under the
Rajapaksa government were often strained due in part to human
rights concerns and the treatment of the minority Tamil
population.
We are optimistic that the Sirisena-led government is
committed to change and have already begun implementing
important reforms. In 2015, the Sri Lankan Parliament passed
its nineteenth constitutional amendment to strengthen
democratic governance and the government co-sponsored a U.N.
Civil Rights Council resolution addressing atrocities committed
during the civil war.
However, the Sirisena government now appears reluctant to
allow foreign judges and prosecutors to participate in war
crimes investigations as called for in the U.N. resolution.
President Sirisena has the difficult task of maintaining
the government unity that is needed to pass constitutional
reforms.
He has found himself between a rock and a hard place and
any moves favored by one element of Sri Lanka's political
puzzle could alienate another, potentially undermining his
political support and breaking the fragile consensus that makes
reform even possible.
In light of this challenge late last year, Secretary Kerry
announced a U.S. assistance commitment of $40 million to
support comprehensive reforms in Sri Lanka, which the
administration hopes will have a significant effect on the
trajectory of Sri Lanka's democratic reform and reconciliation
process.
Closer U.S.-Sri Lankan ties founded in democratic values
will facilitate a stronger foundation that will serve as a
solid basis for broader cooperation in the Indian Ocean region
as well.
Under the Rajapaksa--I apologize, I should have a better
handle on that name--leadership human rights became a wedge
issue for the United States and Sri Lanka, weakening the
relationship, and in response Sri Lanka turned to China for
support.
China considers to assert considerable influence, funding
development projects in Sri Lanka including the Colombo Port
City Project, a $1.4 billion infrastructure project almost
entirely funded by Chinese foreign direct investment.
The port is strategically located along the busiest
commercial sea lane in the world and will be a key part of
China's One Belt, One Road Maritime Silk Road vision to expand
its influence by investing in infrastructure along the trade
and energy routes that transit the Indian Ocean.
China's regional investments are difficult for small
nations like Sri Lanka to pass up. These offers are easy to
accept as they do not come with commitments to reform in any
way.
Through our increased development commitment and diplomatic
ties, the United States is recognizing Sri Lanka's geopolitical
significance to the region and I do support this elevated
cooperation.
President Sirisena has shown a willingness to work more
closely with the United States and in February of this year our
nations began the annual U.S.-Sri Lanka partner dialogue,
bringing new opportunities for the bilateral relationship.
And I look forward to our panel of experts suggesting ways
in which we might enhance the U.S.-Sri-Lankan relationship to
our mutual benefit.
I also hope they will share insights on Sri Lanka's
delicate politics and make recommendations for the future of
the U.S.-Sri Lankan relations.
This is a heightened--there is a heightened sense of
optimism surrounding Sri Lanka's recent changes and I look
forward to today's hearing to discuss ways we can prioritize
those efforts.
And I'd like to turn now to Mr. Sherman for any statements
he might have.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this
hearing and I join with you in concern about China's expansion
into the Indian Ocean and especially in Pakistani and Sri
Lankan ports.
First, I want to express my sympathy and condolences for
all those in Sri Lanka impacted by the flooding associated by
Cyclone Roanu. I hope that the hundreds of thousands of people
who were displaced can return to their homes and rebuild soon.
I'm looking forward to those whose loved ones are missing
hopefully being reunited with them.
Last year, Sri Lanka saw some positive developments. I
expect there's near universal approval among the subcommittee
members for the election of Sri Lankan President Sirisena and
the reaffirmation of the decision in the parliamentary
elections later in the year.
The elections brought to an end the previous government,
which had become increasingly intolerant. These elections
represented a true success for the democratic spirit. The new
President deserves recognition for reducing the power of the
presidency.
I look forward to one day complimenting an American
President for scaling back the expansion of the imperial
presidency here in the United States.
But returning to Sri Lanka, the new President there has
scaled back the powers of the presidency, creating more space
for dissent and free expression and opening the country to
greater scrutiny by international human rights organizations.
These are notable steps. It's never easy to heal a civil
war. The current government came in with a set of promises and
impressed the world. Sri Lanka's co-sponsorship in October 2015
of the U.N. Human Rights Council resolution recommending
concrete steps toward true political reconciliation was truly
and widely acclaimed.
There were promises of the return of land seized during the
conflict of accountability with international oversight for
those who committed crimes, of constitutional reforms to move
power to regions and of changes in the security sector that
would end a culture that promoted abuse with impunity.
Last month, I met with the Sri Lankan Ambassador and
encouraged Sri Lanka to move forward with plans to continue
political reconciliation. The Ambassador described a decline in
the military's role and in its presence in the north and east
of the country, and the constitutional council's work toward
giving more power to local officials.
What I've heard from others, particularly from Tamil
groups, is that the political process of reconciliation and
security sector reform are not moving forward nearly as quickly
as they should.
It is encouraging that the government has established an
office of missing persons but we have yet to see how it can
operate independently from the government, how it will be
resourced and how effective it will be.
The government has promised to reduce the role of the
military but the defense budget has actually grown from $1.2
billion in 2009, which is when the conflict ended, to a new
higher level of $2.13 billion in 2016.
The government has declared that it will resettle all those
displaced in the war by the end of this year. Yet, it has not
returned the vast majority of land seized during the conflict.
It is deeply disturbing to learn that both the President
and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka have declared their intention
to pursue a truth and reconciliation mechanism devoid of
international judges. The Tamil population is unlikely to
accept this as impartial justice.
Most critical is the issue of the return of government-
seized land. The slow progress on this front represents not
only a burden on tens of thousands of those who have been
displaced, many of whom remain homeless but also a major
barrier to building trust between the peoples of north and east
Sri Lanka with the central government.
This is a tenuous moment. There is still a sense of
optimism, but the government can no longer just rest on this
sense of optimism that came with its election.
I look forward to the witnesses' assessment of these
processes and especially for direction on what the United
States can do to advance full reconciliation between the
Sinhalese and the Tamils with due respect for human rights and
accountability. Sri Lanka has traditionally been one of the
most advanced and prosperous nations in South Asia and I look
forward to it also being a beacon of human rights as well, and
I yield back.
Mr. Salmon. Thank you.
Just want to advise the committee members and the panelists
there's a good likelihood that we're going to be called for
floor votes anytime in the next few minutes. So there are other
members that would like to make opening statements.
So there's a real good possibility we may end up having to
do that and then come back. So I will apologize to the
witnesses ahead of time.
Mr. Chabot.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you for holding this hearing and thank the
witnesses for being here. As a former chair of this committee,
I have taken a particular interest in Sri Lanka and I visited
there and been in the northeast and saw the burned-out
buildings and a lot of the damage and things which had been
caused by a lot of years of war and a lot of lives destroyed.
And just yesterday Sri Lanka acknowledged approximately
65,000 people missing during the 26 years of the off and on
civil war. But now 6 years after the official end of the civil
war there may be real opportunity to reconcile the people of
Sri Lanka and rebuilt this really beautiful country. So I hope
that they are successful.
However, I do remain somewhat weary. Although Sri Lanka is
in the midst of early signs of actually attaining a sustaining
peace and democracy, the scars of the civil war still remain
and recently it was somewhat alarming when President Sirisena
vowed to eradicate the LTTE ideologies both locally and
internationally and I think this kind of rhetoric can be
counterproductive but also damaging for the long-term prospects
for national reconciliation, which is absolutely critical.
So I know these are exceptionally complex issues. I thank
you and commend you for holding the hearing and yield back.
Mr. Salmon. Thank you.
Ms. Meng.
Ms. Meng. Thank you, Chairman Salmon and Ranking Member
Sherman, as well as all of our distinguished guests for coming
to testify here today.
I especially love to see a professor from City University
of New York on our panel. We continue to express our
condolences to so many people and their families who have been
affected by the landslides and our thoughts and prayers
continued to be with them.
The election of President Sirisena in January 2015 brought
the promise of a wide variety of reforms and a more inclusive
government that would protect the interests of all Sri Lankans
regardless of ethnic and religious affiliations.
The United States has a strong interest in ensuring that
Sri Lanka remains committed to these reforms and we have
certainly deepened our engagement with Sri Lanka in
anticipation that a Sirisena government will follow through
with these promises.
Sri Lanka has certainly taken some steps to implement a few
reforms. But many people, particularly in the minority
populations, experience ongoing violence and have been
frustrated with the slow reform process that remains extremely
vulnerable to political divisions.
I look forward to hearing your assessment on the current
reform process and challenges. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Salmon. Thank you.
Mr. Donovan.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you, Chairman. I would like to thank
Subcommittee Chairman Matt Salmon and Ranking Member Brad
Sherman along with their staffs for holding this hearing.
Although I am not a member of this committee, I am grateful
for the opportunity to speak here today. The relationship
between the United States and Sri Lanka is important to my
district of Staten Island and western Brooklyn because I
represent the largest population of Sri Lankans in the United
States. And welcome, Professor. It is great to have another New
Yorker in the room.
Many of my constituents are ethnic Tamils and left Sri
Lanka during the civil war that lasted 26 years. They could not
have been more relieved when it ended in 2009 and elections
were conducted in 2015.
These elections in Sri Lanka have provided an opening for
change and reforms that have been taken place. However, I am
not sure if the reforms have gone far enough. So U.S. attention
and encouragement remains vital.
In particular, the reforms needed for reconciliation
between Sinhalese and Tamils, Hindus, Christians, Muslims and
Buddhists after a long war have not yet been accomplished.
We need security sector reform to reorient the military for
peace time, political reform to provide greater autonomy for
regional governments, and legal reform for neutrality of the
judiciary and criminalization.
Criminalizing terrible abuses such as enforced
disappearances, war crimes and crimes against humanity remain
as important tasks for the future.
Sri Lanka has made important commitments in the area of
accountability and transactional justice and needs to be held
to those commitments in the areas of truth telling, justice,
reparations and institutional reforms so that reconciliation
can take place.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses and reporting
back to my constituents, and I yield back the remainder of my
time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Salmon. Thank you. We are proud to be joined today by
an esteemed group of panelists--first, Ms. Lisa Curtis, senior
research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, welcome; Ms. Kara
Bue, partner at Armitage International; and Dr. Nimmi
Gowrinathan.
Did I say that right? Close enough, for government work
anyway? A visiting professor from the city of New York.
And we are really thrilled to have you each here today and
we will start with Ms. Curtis.
STATEMENT OF MS. LISA CURTIS, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, ASIAN
STUDIES CENTER, THE DAVIS INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AND
FOREIGN POLICY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Ms. Curtis. Thank you, Chairman and----
Mr. Salmon. Oh, thank you.
Ms. Curtis. Thank you, Chairman Salmon, Ranking Member
Sherman, the rest of the distinguished members of the
subcommittee, for inviting me here today to talk about U.S.-Sri
Lankan relations.
I will summarize my written testimony and ask that my full
written testimony is submitted for the congressional record.
Let me join the voices of the members of the panel to
express my sympathy for the victims of the severe flooding and
landslides that struck Sri Lanka last month. My thoughts and
prayers go out to the families of those who lost their lives as
well as those who lost homes and other property.
There has been a rapid turnaround in U.S.-Sri Lankan
relations in the past 18 months since President Maithripala
Sirisena took power. The passage of the nineteenth amendment
that curbed the powers of the presidency just a little over a
year ago was a milestone on the path back to democracy.
Indeed, the democratic reform process is enabling our
countries to improve relations and Sri Lanka continues to be
important for its geographic position at the maritime
crossroads of Asia and the Middle East.
The results of the parliamentary elections that were held
in August 2015 further raised hopes that the country would
continue down a path of reform and reconciliation.
Sirisena cooperated with the United National Party in
elections that brought Ranil Wickremesinghe to power as the new
Prime Minister and the two sides formed a unity government.
In a major departure from the former Rajapaksa government's
triumphalist attitude toward the 2009 defeat of the LTTE, the
Unity Government in September 2015 co-sponsored a U.N. Human
Rights Council resolution acknowledging that war crimes were
committed by both the government and LTTE insurgents during the
civil war.
In addition to lifting curbs on the media, opening travel
to the northern parts of the country, this Sri Lankan
Government has also welcomed international human rights
organizations to the country, a practice that the previous
government shunned.
The cabinet also recently approved the establishment of an
Office of Missing Persons, although some members of the Sri
Lankan society have complained that they were not consulted
about the move.
The government has vowed to adopt a new constitution that
abolishes the executive presidency, adopts electoral reform and
strengthens provincial devolution.
Despite all of these positive steps, there remains concerns
within the Tamil activist community that the human rights
reform process is beginning to stall. One contentious issue is
whether there will be foreign judges on the panel to
investigate human rights abuses.
There is tremendous resistance from the majority Sinhalese
nationalists, who still hold a large chunk of parliamentary
seats, to the idea of international judges determining the fate
of Sri Lankan military officials.
Tamil human rights activists question whether the U.S. is
over estimating the level of change at the grass roots level or
giving too much credit to the government when there are still
major human rights concerns among the Tamil people.
Let me say a few brief words about China and India, and Sri
Lanka's relationship with these two key countries. There has
been criticism of the Rajapaksa government's cozying up to
China and questions surrounding large-scale infrastructure
projects that were pursued during his tenure.
Sri Lanka's willingness under the Rajapaksa regime to allow
Chinese submarines to dock at Colombo's ports twice in late
2014 alarmed Indian officials, who are wary of China's
increasing influence in its back yard.
Sri Lanka has since toned down its relationship with China.
However, China will continue to factor largely in Sri Lanka's
economic future as Prime Minister Wickremesinghe's recent visit
to Beijing demonstrated.
Sri Lanka needs Chinese infrastructure investment and now
that the country is facing a financial crunch it cannot afford
to alienate China to which it owes $8 billion in debt.
So moving forward, the U.S. should encourage the democratic
reform process that is underway, encourage more speedy movement
toward reconciliation and transitional justice.
It should build broader economic and investment ties with
Sri Lanka and assist with the revitalization--the economic
revitalization of the war-torn areas of the north and east.
Without economic and job opportunities, it will be
difficult to sustain support for peace and reconciliation.
Lastly, the U.S. should focus on enhancing maritime
cooperation with Sri Lanka, recognizing the pivotal position
that Colombo occupies in the Indian Ocean region.
So in conclusion, there is a unique opportunity to move
forward with ethnic reconciliation and to unify the country
following nearly three decades of civil war, and I think the
unity government deserves credit for its implementation of
democratic reforms.
But there is still a great deal of work to be done in
promoting ethnic reconciliation and a durable peace.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Curtis follows:]
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Mr. Salmon. Thank you.
Ms. Bue.
STATEMENT OF MS. KARA L. BUE, FOUNDING PARTNER, ARMITAGE
INTERNATIONAL
Ms. Bue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Sherman
and the other esteemed members of this committee.
I would like to express my appreciation for your
willingness to have me appear here to talk about the future of
Sri Lanka. I followed it for some time and I am very grateful
for the attention it is getting now.
I too would like to express my condolences to the Sri
Lankan people during the cyclone that hit several months ago. I
was there at the time and it was devastating to see the harm
that was done to the people and their property, but I was very
proud too that the United States came forward with additional
aid that could help the people who suffered from those storms.
So I was very happy to see that happen.
I had been asked to talk about U.S.-Sri Lanka relations.
Over the last 15 years there has been an ebb and flow in terms
of our engagement there.
With the election of President Sirisena and Prime Minister
Wickremesinghe, there really is a new opportunity for
engagement. They came into power with a platform of good
governance and reconciliation, and together with that they came
in with the desire to rebalance Sri Lanka's foreign policy.
What that did was open the door for the United States to
engage in a wide range of opportunities for support in Sri
Lanka's efforts to finally set the stage for lasting peace and
it also allowed us to regain our partnership with Sri Lanka on
key issues.
For its part, the Government of Sri Lanka has put forth
what anyone would consider a very ambitious agenda. I look at
it in terms of five pillars--their ideas about constitutional
reform, economic stabilization, addressing the painful war
legacy, rebuilding democratic institutions and reestablishing
rule of law.
In many ways they have made great progress in the 15, 16
months since they've been in power. Importantly, they have
undertaken two ambitious efforts.
One is constitutional reform where they're looking to
redraft the constitution, have that presented to the Parliament
at the end of the year and then thereafter follow it with a
referendum.
The other and perhaps more important was Sri Lanka's
agreement at the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting to agree to
the resolution on reconciliation and transitional justice.
That, I believe, is a historic event, particularly given the
history of the Rajapaksa regime.
The other thing I would like to note on the Government of
Sri Lanka's part is the tone it has taken with regard to ethnic
issues and how different that is from the Rajapaksa regime.
I know some of what they are doing is very symbolic but it
has been meaningful to people in Sri Lanka. The national
anthem, for example, on Independence Day being sung in Tamil
was a very big deal to many Tamils.
I met with Chief Justice Wickremesinghe and he was very
moved by that fact. On Remembrance Day, which used to be called
Victory Day, they held no parades and that, I think, was a
testament to the Sri Lankan Government's intentions with regard
to reconciliation.
In turn, for all of this the United States has stepped up
its engagement as well. Soon after the elections, they had a
number of high-level visits. They developed the idea of a new
U.S.-Sri Lankan partnership dialogue. The U.S. was very
instrumental at the Human Rights Council meeting.
In terms of the resolution we have increased assistance.
Forty million dollars, I believe, is what Secretary Kerry
offered during his visit in May 2015 and we engaged a bit on
military to military engagement and, of course, are looking at
economic opportunities.
Having traveled to Sri Lanka several--at least four times
in the last 9 months, I did want to offer some caution in the
sense that while we are very excited about how U.S.-Sri Lanka
relations are going and the direction they are taking, there
are clouds in terms of how the Sri Lankan Government can move
forward.
They face a lot of challenges in trying to implement their
wide ambitious agenda. The first is that it is very big and it
has a lot of moving parts.
For Sri Lanka to do everything it wants to do, it is going
to take a long and very complicated process to get things done
and I think that is something that everyone needs to realize.
They also lack resources and institutional capacity, both
in terms of people and in infrastructure. There are people
within the military, within the bureaucracy and within
political parties that aren't really on board in terms of what
this ambitious agenda is about to do.
So they do face a lot of controversy there and on top of
it, the new government is part of a very diverse and unique
coalition within the Sri Lankan political party.
So there is a lot left to be done and not everyone has
gotten down to work and is attempting to address its agenda.
Having talked to people in the north and east, they are not yet
feeling the peace dividend.
What I have heard is a statement that is commonly used,
which is that everything has changed and yet nothing has
changed. And so the government has a lot left to do to respond
to the needs of the people in the war-affected areas and that
too is a very large challenge and something that we should try
to help them with.
In all of this, I think the areas that deserve the most
attention are leadership and confidence-building measures. The
Sri Lankan Government has a short time frame in which to get a
lot done and people in the war-affected areas in particular
aren't going to give it that much time before their positions
start to harden and, frankly, I think they're already starting
to harden.
And so in terms of leadership and confidence building,
leadership is the idea of greater communication on the part of
the Sri Lankan Government.
In terms of their agenda, I don't think they have done well
enough in educating and bringing along all people of Sri
Lanka--the people in the south as well as the north and east--
in terms of what they are trying to do to respond to
everybody's needs. Communication is a big factor.
In terms of confidence-building measures, the idea would
try to change the mantra in the north and east about how
everything has changed and nothing has changed. Start making
things change a little bit for the better in terms of focusing
on more land release, for example.
Lastly, an area that I think the U.S. should look at in
greater detail is the idea of a donor conference for
development in the north and east.
In 2003, after the cease fire had taken place, the United
States was instrumental in bringing together an international
coalition in a donor conference in Tokyo where they raised $4.5
billion for a period of 3 years.
And that gave people a lot of hope. Now, the rancorous
politics in Sri Lanka dashed those hopes and war returned. But
in this instance where we feel there is a little more hope and
a little more opportunity for lasting peace, I do think it
would be wise to consider another type of effort where we could
be instrumental making tangible change happen in the war-
affected areas.
And with that, I would like to thank you for your time and
consideration.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bue follows:]
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Mr. Salmon. Thank you very much.
Dr. Gowrinathan.
STATEMENT OF NIMMI GOWRINATHAN, PH.D., VISITING PROFESSOR,
COLIN POWELL CENTER FOR CIVIC AND GLOBAL LEADERSHIP, CITY
COLLEGE OF NEW YORK, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Ms. Gowrinathan. Okay. I imagine you all hear a lot of
these panels, a lot of these conversations and I think what
comes up over and over again is that there is this disconnect
between researchers, between activists, between practitioner
and policy makers, and I think one of the biggest disconnects
is that policy makers don't understand the ground realities,
right.
Obviously, it is difficult for policy makers to do. I
think, you know, what a lot of my work--what I would like to
testify to is how the policies that are made over here affect
the people over there--how the people over there experience
these policies.
If you pass materiel support for terrorism law in the
United States it affects the resources available to a young
girl in the northeast in Sri Lanka.
I think the U.S. policies abroad and particularly, you
know, we are seeing this with Sri Lanka, are too often
committed to an ideal and this feels sort of intentional to me,
being committed to an ideal.
That ideal is usually democracy, which is an important
ideal to uphold. But this commitment need not challenge
political agendas. If you uphold only the ideal then you don't
have to shift political agendas and it is these political
agendas by the Sri Lankan Government, by the international
community and by the United States that can sometimes sustain
and create more conflict.
So in Sri Lanka as elsewhere solutions that are based on
ideals are not going to be effective--have not been effective.
This is particularly concerning right now because where a
solution fails, violence returns, and that is what I think all
of us don't want to see happen in Sri Lanka.
So as we consider the progress in Sri Lanka, how do we
gauge it? Do we gauge it on policies that reflect an ideal to
promote peace or do we gauge it on solutions that create
structural change that is required to end violence.
Which way are we measuring these policies in Sri Lanka? And
this is a really central question because the people these
policies affect can feel the difference between the two.
And so there's four areas that I want to look at here to
examine the gap between the people's experiences and the
policies that we are examining. And the first is transitional
justice.
People have been talking a lot about transitional justice
in Sri Lanka. There was a new report out from a group of local
scholars in Sri Lanka--legal scholars--and one of the first
requirements for transitional justice is that you address both
truth and justice. The two have to be done together.
And while the question for Sri Lanka is will the Government
of Sri Lanka be willing to dig up mass graves, to find the
missing husband of a widow, if that same body becomes evidence
for war crimes.
Will there be truth and justice? The ground reports reveal
that already the initiatives that have started the Office of
Missing Persons are asking victims to choose between the two.
Do they want truth or do they want justice?
Another thing that you have to have for transitional
justice is confidence-building measures. You have to have the
confidence of the people. They have to have faith in state
institutions.
The Tamils and other groups are still feeling very
intensely the reverberations of past accountability efforts.
The women I met in the refugee camps at the end of the war they
were well aware that there was a United Nations desk to report
sexual violence crimes. Nobody went anywhere near that desk for
fear of retribution. The people who testified on lessons
learned and reconciliation committee immediately faced
harassment by security forces. The Office of Missing Persons
has already been found to not consult the victims in any sort
of genuine process.
In a recent survey in the northeast found that there is a
deep disillusionment and mistrust, and this is important not
just as a Sri Lankan state but of the international community.
The Tamil population feels that the international community,
along with the Sri Lankan Government, abandoned them in 2009.
So it is important to recognize that there is a deep mistrust
and disillusionment in these areas.
Another need for transitional justice is a memorialization
of the dead. Memorializing their dead in the northeast has been
criminalized. Not just that, they have removed the spaces of
worship.
Slowly you are seeing the destruction of temples and the
erection of Buddhist statues where people might memorialize
their dead.
For many Tamils I've met recently, memory has no value. The
way that they survive is by forgetting. They don't want to
answer any more questions because they fear that memory will
put their lives at risk.
This is a key problem you're going to face and you have
this sort of moment where you have development and
accountability processes merging together and what you create
is this entrenched victimization where a person exists only by
the worst experience that happened to them, where they have
access to resources only by articulating the worst thing that's
happened to them.
And then militarization--obviously, this demilitarization
is one of the biggest issues for all communities in the north
and east. To show demilitarization, yes, the government has
made the governor of the northeast a civilian and not a
military commander. So this is--you know, it is showing
something.
But if you talk to the civilians there, there was a
civilian I spoke to recently who said you don't need
checkpoints anymore--you don't need soldiers.
When you have a context where preschool teachers are
recruited into the civilian defense force where the only jobs
are military-run hotels and hospitals and vegetable shops and
on agricultural farms run by the military, then militarization
is complete. Everybody is an informant.
For those who have returned home to some of the land that
the government has returned, most of them are living in the
shadow of military camps.
They are still immediately adjacent to the very forces that
were a part of the atrocities committed in 2009. The military
mediates every aspect of civic life in the north and east.
Everything from communal functions to private
entrepreneurship. They have even left their mark on the school
uniforms of Tamil children.
So this type of deep militarization, I think I would
caution here has been used as a model for counter terrorism has
been held up as something we should, you know, try to replicate
and I think here it is important to note the defeat of the LTTE
militarily requires a violation of all established human rights
and humanitarian norms.
I don't think this is something we want to replicate. And
women, peace and security, which is a critical issue now with
the U.N. and here at the U.S. that we put a lot of effort into,
a recent survey that I did found that while there has not been
as many crimes--the magnitude of crimes against women by the
state has decreased--the mode of operating remains the same.
So Tamil women still feel that if there is an act of sexual
violence there will be no prosecution for that act. And so I
think that what we are looking at--what we have to look at is
what is the potential for the resurgence of violence.
We use these words like inequality and alienation and these
are things that cause violence. But we always use them in a
passive way. They are actually active things that are
happening. They are political acts.
There is repressive policies that create inequality. There
is populations that are alienated. It is done through political
acts and these have a political impact.
So when we look at Sri Lanka and we look at political
reform right now, what is the genuine political space available
for Tamils? If you're going to gauge democratic transition
simply by a regime change that shouldn't be how we're gauging
it because you still see the arrest of protest organizers. You
still have the Prevention of Terrorism Act in place.
A recent report reveals there are still white van
abductions. There are still--the use of torture was noted by
U.N. rapporteurs.
So as you've seen in other countries like in Myanmar and
other countries in democratic transition, the commitment at a
national level to a shift in politics, in political dynamics,
does not mean there is a structural shift to include the
perspectives of marginalized populations and there has not been
a shift in that way.
So I would end by saying that the U.S. should have a
cautious approach and the statements and policies should be
calibrated by the ground realities.
Things like human rights violations, the loss of faith in
state institutions, military occupation, a culture of
impunity--these are the drivers of violence.
You cannot have a sustainable peace without addressing
these things. So rather than measuring progress against the
ideal of democracy in Sri Lanka, are we willing to push for the
dismantling of political structures that hold inequality in
place?
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gowrinathan follows:]
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Mr. Salmon. Thank you.
With our truncated time for questions and the fact that we
are going to be called for votes very soon, if members could
maybe hold their questions to 2 minutes.
So anybody that wants to try to get a question in before we
leave I am going to adjourn when the votes are called. And I am
going to allocate my time to our guest member, Mr. Donovan. So
you go ahead and start the questioning and then I will go to
the ranking member.
Mr. Donovan. I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much.
I am curious--why do you think the judicial process is so
slow? Over 200 Tamils held under these same laws at this moment
7 years after the war has ended. Like, why do you believe that
this process is so slow for these individuals?
Anyone, yeah.
Ms. Bue. Well, I can't say for sure exactly why it is so
slow. But my understanding is that this is a legacy issue from
the Rajapaksa era. There are elements within the government
that have been resistant to moving faster on the release of
political prisoners.
In speaking with the current government, there are efforts
to move past that. I know that they have released some
prisoners as of last year and they are looking to release more.
Mr. Donovan. Is it true that some of the names aren't even
released yet?
Ms. Bue. Yes.
Mr. Donovan. I am sorry. I didn't want to cut you off.
Ms. Bue. Oh, no. But yes.
Mr. Donovan. Can the United States do anything about this?
What is the United States' role here as people back home see?
Ms. Gowrinathan. I would say that one of the key things to
look at is the role of, again, the military. A number of the
cases--when you have the entrenched military in a number of
these areas the military is mediating everything.
So what if someone reports a case? What language it's
reported in, who they see going into a courtroom? You know,
there is--there is sort of an impact on anybody who tries to
engage in the judicial process.
I have met--a former ex-combatant I met last year who said
that she has five or six pending cases against her by the
military for things like throwing away her cell phone because
she didn't want to be tracked.
So when the courts are filling up with these types of
surveillance cases against all of the Tamils who they suspect
to be linked in some way to the Tigers, when women can't walk
outside because they have five different cases pending against
them by the military, there is not going to be room for the
Tamil population to address their grievances within the same
court system that came from within a state that controlled the
entire judicial mechanisms that appointed all of the Supreme
Court judges.
So that, I think, where those two sort of come up against
each other you see this constant sort of slowness of the
process.
Mr. Donovan. Right. And so--and this will be my last
question because I want the other members speak because the
chairman said we have to run and vote momentarily--the United
States' role here--besides suggesting, trying to influence,
trying to persuade corrections in this system that you just
described as so wrong, is there a role here for the United
States besides just as an advisor of telling people this--what
you are doing here is wrong and that the effects on women, as
you just spoke about, are something that the United States
disapproves of.
Just disapproving it is not going to get this to move any
further along in the process. What is our role here?
Ms. Curtis. Well, I think the U.S. has a role in both the
private statements it makes to the government but also public
statements, to put a little public pressure.
You know, these things are very difficult. You may have
parts of the government that want to move forward quickly. But
there are political considerations that they have.
So I think they do need our nudging. As I spelled out in my
testimony, there have been many positive steps by this
government.
But the only way the process will continue to move forward
is probably through U.S. and other pressure. So I think it is
important for us to make public statements also through the
U.N.
The U.N. is meeting today on these issues. So I think
working through the U.N. process and continuing to press for
concrete and substantive movement, such as releasing political
prisoners, it's absolutely necessary for the U.S. to push.
Otherwise, the default will be to move slowly and not take
those very difficult steps.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Salmon. Thank you. Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Doctor, the government has sped up a special assembly
effort to draft a new constitution. It's expected to grant
Tamils regional political power.
Where do things stand now on drafting these constitutional
provisions and what is the likelihood that Tamils in the north
and east will have some degree of regional authority?
Ms. Gowrinathan. The likelihood, I would say, of the
devolution of power has always been something that seems very
optimistic for the north and east.
You know, the concern, I think, becomes who is mediating
that political conversation. So when you have a context where
there was a political movement that was articulating the
political demands of the people and that shifts to a political
party, that may not be as sort of entrenched in the ground
realities as you would want.
For me, the concern becomes how do you get the everyday
sort of citizen to engage in politics in a way that their
opinions come across without being mediated.
And so when you see things like mass protests that is
encouraging. Mass protests about the disappeared--mass protests
about the missing persons--those are encouraging. But when you
see the protestors arrested and harassed right afterwards then
again you feel that that space is not a genuine space offered.
It is sort of the streets have opened up and there's less
checkpoints but the people are still harassed.
Mr. Sherman. Let me try to squeeze in one more question.
What is--how is--what signs are there that the government is
really going to transfer land from the military back to the
people and how much land does the military control in the north
and east?
Ms. Bue and then----
Ms. Bue. My understanding is that as for the north there
are over 12,000 acres that the military still maintains.
Now, I should have prefaced that by the fact that there are
a lot of different numbers floating around. That's just the one
that I use.
Mr. Sherman. Let me--let me ask the--is--because I have
heard a lot about the military-held land. Are we talking here
about 12,000 rural acres? Or are we talking about more land
than that?
Ms. Gowrinathan. They hold a lot more than that and I think
there is private and public land that is being held, and I was
there last year for this very sort of fancy military ceremony
of releasing tiny plots of land to people.
The military still controls a large amount of land in the
north and east that should be for--I mean, you still have tens
of thousands of internally-displaced people because their homes
are in high security zones.
So the lands are still being held by the military and let's
say that even where they say formally this is public land but
we are going to use it for a base, we are going to use it for a
military hospital, we are going to use it for a military-run
hotel, that is still occupation of private lands that belong to
Tamils.
Mr. Salmon. I thank the panel members for coming today. We
appreciate your commitment to improving the lives of people in
the region and I think we've had a great discussion. I think it
is clear that the U.S. Congress is very interested in moving
forward and not just on paper but in reality.
I really appreciate all the comments, and, without
objection, the hearing will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:47 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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