John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Fremantle on her motion in parliament tonight. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, I have been speaking out in this place on the conflict in Sri Lanka since I arrived here almost 11 years ago and I intend to keep speaking out on this appalling humanitarian crisis. As we speak in this parliament tonight there are some 300,000 Tamils incarcerated in atrocious conditions in government-controlled camps in the north of Sri Lanka. These innocent citizens have been herded into barb-wire camps and are suffering poor health, poor nutrition and shortage of water, as well as having to endure awful sanitary conditions.

The member for Fremantle’s motion is a very important motion that goes to the heart of the concerns we should all share for the suffering of innocent victims and it goes to the heart of respect for human rights the government of Sri Lanka must now show to its Tamil citizens. The Sri Lankan government is taking false and dishonest comfort in the recent United Nations Human Rights Council resolution that supports the current crisis in the north of Sri Lanka as a ‘domestic matter that doesn’t warrant outside interference’. The Sri Lankan government is taking false and dishonest comfort in the resolution that supports the government’s insistence on permitting aid organisations access to some 300,000 Tamil civilians held in camps only ‘as may be appropriate’.

I ask: if outside parliaments like ours and all the other parliaments concerned about human rights throughout the world do not speak out for the Tamil people now, how can we ever expect justice for the Tamil people from the Sri Lankan government? I also ask: what pressures were placed by the Sri Lankan government on the members of the United Nations Human Rights Council to achieve this flawed outcome? The vote of support for the Sri Lankan government by the council makes a total mockery of the recent vote by the council that went against Israel in relation to the killing of some 700 innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the instigation of a fact-finding mission to report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by both sides in Gaza.

Confidential United Nations documents obtained by The Times newspaper reveal that more than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed, mostly through shelling, in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war. Further, those documents show that 7,000 innocent civilians lost their lives in the no-fire zone of Sri Lanka up to the end of April, despite the Sri Lankan government claiming that their forces had stopped using heavy weapons on 27 April. Moreover, the United Nations confidential documents reveal a further 1,000 civilians were killed on average each day up until 19 May.

What double standards has the United Nations Human Rights Council exhibited in the case of the civil war in Sri Lanka compared with the conflict in Gaza? How can the United Nations Human Rights Council vote for a fact-finding mission to report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel and Palestine in Gaza and not support a similar fact-finding mission for Sri Lanka? How dare the Sri Lankan ambassador to Geneva claim last week that the European nations had failed with their ‘punitive and mean-spirited agenda’ against Sri Lanka? I ask, on behalf of the 300,000 Tamils suffering in horrendous conditions tonight in Sri Lanka: how punitive and mean-spirited is the government of Sri Lanka?

Immediate, full and unimpeded access to the civilians held in the barb-wire camps must now be given by the Sri Lankan government to United Nations and other humanitarian agencies. Moreover, there must be an independent and thorough international investigation into the bloodbath and war crimes associated with the 26 years of civil war in Sri Lanka. You only have to note the words of International Crisis Group Sri Lanka analyst Alan Keenan quoted in the Australian newspaper today warning that many people will be vulnerable to denunciations as Tamil Tigers, which is one reason why it is essential—but unlikely—that the Sri Lankan government should make the refugee camps open to independent eyes. As I said in this place last week, the selective and government-controlled tour by the United Nations Secretary-General, His Excellency Mr Ban Ki-moon, raises even more concerns for the many thousands of unaccounted-for Tamils as well as the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced civilians in government-controlled camps.

The European and other nations who have spoken up for the Tamils are not fools. The international community are not fools. We are not fools. I repeat what I said here in this place last week: the Sri Lankan government must immediately enter into honest diplomatic negotiations in good faith with representatives from the Tamil community and recognise their aspirations as stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. All people have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right, they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. (Time expired)

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