Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to draw the attention of the House to issues brought to me by members of the Australian Tamil community in my electorate of Tangney. The United Nations has released the report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on the final stages of the armed conflict that ended in Sri Lanka in May 2009. The report states:

The panel found credible allegations which, if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed both by the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It also says:

The Government shelled on a large scale in three consecutive No Fire Zones, where it had encouraged the civilian population to concentrate, even after indicating that it would cease the use of heavy weapons.

It concluded:

... the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity both during war and peace.

The United Nations report is scathing in its assessment of the Sri Lankan government-appointed Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, saying it was not impartial and concluding that it 'has not conducted genuine truth-seeking about what happened in the final stages of the armed conflict' between January and May 2009.

The report also recognises the failure of the international community to protect the civilians in this conflict. The UN Secretary-General has accepted recommendations regarding the failure of the UN to protect civilians. The UN will conduct a review of why it failed to implement its own humanitarian and protection mandates. The international community, including Australia, acted admirably in Libya, Burma, Fiji and Zimbabwe when serious human rights violations were inflicted upon the civilian population. The time has come for Australia to act decisively for Sri Lanka, given that Australia is committed to tackling war crimes and takes allegations of war crimes very seriously, and is a signatory to all international conventions on human rights and crimes against humanity.

Several key international leaders, including the UK and the US, have congratulated the UN Secretary-General for initiating this inquiry and for publicly releasing this detailed report that covers all aspects of the alleged human rights violations. A similar public response from Australia will give the Australian Tamil community the strength to continue to bring justice through accountability and peace to the Tamil people and indeed all people of Sri Lanka.