By Chandrani Gunaratna

On the eve of the scheduled informal UN Security Council meeting on Sri Lanka where the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his French Counterpart Bernard Kouchner will attend on Monday May 11th, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) who is constantly attacking the Sri Lankan government has written, this time, to the Japanese Premier.

In a joint report with representatives from other similar agencies that show clear sympathy towards Sri Lanka's terrorist group LTTE, Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of HRW urges Japan to "support efforts for the Security Council to keep the situation in Sri Lanka under close and regular review and to consider the situation in Sri Lanka formally at the Security Council."

It is amazing how determined HRW is to prosecute the Sri Lankan government. It churns out report after report against Sri Lanka showing clear hostility and citing mountains of allegations based on questionable evidence.

Combining anecdotal unverifiable evidence and speculations convincingly, HRW writes to every organization, every donor, who supports Sri Lanka and urge them to take actions against Sri Lanka.

In the letter to the Japanese Prime Minister on Sunday May 10th HRW writes that "the Sri Lankan government has refused access to the conflict-affected areas to the United Nations, impartial humanitarian and human rights organizations and the media. It should be clear that the world needs to know what is actually happening on the ground so that it can prevent abuses and help those in need."

This allegation is far from the truth. The aid workers of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have access to the no-fire zone as well as to the welfare centers for the Internally displaced Persons. ICRC is allowed to be present at the screening points and UNHCR is present at the main screening point at Omanthai. There are about 20 aid organizations including Caritas, World Vision, IOM and UNICEF providing relief at the welfare centers.

On May 1st Huffington Post published a report by James Ross of HRW titled "Tigers End Game in Sri Lanka." In the report Ross, reiterating the allegations that Army is shelling the war-zone says "Disastrously, the Sri Lanka army has obliged the Tiger's death wish by indiscriminately firing heavy artillery into the strip, littering the area with bodies and body parts."

Then he goes onto say that support for the Tamil Tiger cause remains strong for many Tamils in Sri Lanka and among the large Tamil Diaspora.

If He was in Sri Lanka lately and listened to the nearly 200,000 Tamils escaped into what HRW calls "internment camps" he would have learned that the LTTE have lost the support from Tamils in Sri Lanka. And only the demonstrators in several European cities and Canada are the ones now support the LTTE. It is clear Ross and the rest of the HRW are hoping for a LTTE resurrection.

The report continues to say that 'instead of addressing Tamil concerns about governance, property rights, and civil liberties, the administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has only heightened them, pandering to the most nationalistic Sinhalese elements in society.' In the same vein Ross says "Several Tamil politicians and journalists have been murdered and others have been prosecuted on dubious political grounds" attempting to level a thinly veiled accusation against the government.

The HRW really bares its teeth against the Sri Lankan state here. If they are not so blinded they would have learned that not a single Tamil politician is murdered by Sri Lankan governments but all the Tamil voices were silenced by the LTTE. Here is a list of all the Tamil politicians killed by the LTTE starting from the killing of Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappa on July 27, 1975.

The HRW however, was not satisfied with the coverage it received from the Huffington Post so it posted the same report in their web site on May 4th.

HRW issues another report on May 08 titled "Sri Lanka: Repeated Shelling of Hospitals Evidence of War Crimes" with few pictures it has received from the LTTE.

HRW, echoing the pro-LTTE media, says they received information about at least 30 attacks on permanent and makeshift hospitals in the combat area since December 2008 from the patients, medical staff, aid workers, and other witnesses and concludes that commanders responsible for ordering or conducting such attacks may be prosecuted for war crimes.

Citing anecdotal accounts, keeping in mind that these stories come from the individuals in the LTTE dominated no-fire zone, Human Rights Watch says that each time a hospital was established in a new location, the doctors transmitted GPS coordinates of the facility to the Sri Lankan government to ensure that the facility would be protected from military attack and on several occasions, attacks occurred on the day after the coordinates had been transmitted in a clear attempt to implicate the Sri Lankan government.

While there are dozens more conflicts currently raging in the rest of the world HRW spends a disproportionate amount of time on Sri Lanka's conflict. It is determined to include Sri Lanka on the UN Security Council's agenda and to scrutinize the country at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

It is clear there is a concerted effort by the HRW and other forces to save the fast-vanishing LTTE leadership. HRW's report on May 8th on the alleged shelling of hospitals by the Sri Lankan Army, the call by the UN Human Rights Council expert, Philip Aston for international scrutiny on Sri Lanka and yesterday's outrageous claim by the LTTE of over 2000 civilian deaths supposedly due to Army shelling, timed correctly just before the UN Security Council meeting, are all directed towards one goal - to stop the military offensive and call for a ceasefire to give the LTTE leadership time to find a way to get out of the trap they are in now.

HRW has reputation of being biased against democratically elected governments and siding with terrorist groups. Following are few statements other countries have said about HRW.

"The Human Rights Watch often provides false information about Viet Nam. Its report dated May 4th 2009 is biased and does not reflect the real situation in Viet Nam."

"Ethiopia’s government was so incensed by the description of 'systematic atrocities' in the Ogaden that it commissioned a report of its own that dismissed Human Rights Watch's allegations as hearsay and its methods as slapdash.."

HRW's sympathy for terrorist groups is clearly evident the way it criticizes Israel. An independent study by NGO Monitor has shown that between 2001 and 2004, during the height of the terror attacks against Israel, HRW focused one-third of its entire Middle East effort on condemnations directed at Israel. "This went far beyond legitimate criticism, and suggested an obsession," NGO Monitor says.

Gerald M. Steinberg of NGO Monitor says "When it comes to war crimes committed by terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, time and again Roth [Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch] ignores the clear evidence, refusing to issue public condemnations or hold press conferences claiming the need for thorough investigations. In contrast, Israel was found guilty from the outset."

Steinberg says "apart from the tendentious reporting, the extensive use of loaded terms, such as 'war crimes,' 'violation of international law,' etc.—used far more often in HRW reports on Israel than in reports on all other Middle East states—fed anti-Israel divestment and boycott campaigns." Sounds familiar?

Dr. Avi Bell in an article in New York Sun referring to the bias against Israel says "HRW amplifies the image of Israeli wrongdoing by speculating as to the existence of improper Israeli motives and then sternly warning Israel against the speculated thought." HRW is obviously demonstrating the same attitude towards Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka, also fighting a terror war similar to Israel receives the same treatment from HRW. The difference is in Israel's case it has the support of the United States but when it comes to Sri Lanka unfortunately the US loses sight and believes the half-truths of HRW.

In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, 118 academic experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility."

The group questioning the credibility of the HRW report says "We find it troubling that a report on Human Rights depends heavily on unreliable sources. Would a report on human rights in the United States be taken seriously if it relied so heavily on Fox News, or even worse The National Enquirer?"

It seems that it is the practice of HRW to rely on the uncorroborated anecdotal evidences and pass them as the truth.

Anna Neistat of HRW clearly violated Sri Lankan government's laws to gain entry into the conflict zone. She misrepresented herself as a lawyer, entered into the country on a tourist visa, visited the conflict zone without permission, interviewed patients at the Vavuniya hospital, and testified at the US Senate hearing. This is how HRW collects its evidence against "international war crimes" perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government.

Various organizations, governments, and journalists have often criticized HRW for its bias reporting and twisting tales. Looking at the above statements it is clear that HRW resorts to vicious propaganda attacks against certain governments and Sri Lanka is one of them subjected to the ire of HRW for whatever purpose.

Perhaps the funding agencies of the HRW should take a note of this disturbing approach of HRW in evaluating human rights and its practice of passing around personal accounts as hard proof of human right violations. Until the HRW sheds its bias, its reports lack credibility.