A New Report on Sri Lanka’s Cluster Munition Victims

A new report focuses on the plight of cluster munition victims in Sri Lanka. It’s been jointly published by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS).

The section about injuries and the recovery process is particularly compelling.

Here’s another part of the report:

Despite evidence slipping into the public discourse periodically about the Sri Lanka Government’s use of cluster munitions, including photographs and reports in the international media, successive governments in Colombo have strenuously denied it. This has been possible partly due to the control governments have exercised over Sri Lanka’s media to discuss matters pertaining to the civil war freely, especially aspects which could implicate the political leadership and the military in war crimes and crimes against humanity. In Sri Lanka’s North and East, where military operations took place, matters are different because the use of cluster munitions is common knowledge, although it is not acknowledged in the local media or in official documents.

Then there’s the government’s appalling hypocrisy:

At the same time as denying the deployment cluster ordnances against its own citizens, Sri Lanka strove hard to become part of an international movement to enforce its banning.

Incredibly, Sri Lanka is currently the President of the Convention on Cluster Munitions!

The document provides useful recommendations for the UN and the Sri Lankan government. But don’t expect Sri Lanka to be even remotely honest about its use of cluster munitions during the end the island nation’s civil war.

You can check out the report here.