Pilot activity in Sri Lanka

— Coding, matching and analysis of NGOs' data on human rights violations

Sri Lanka is gradually emerging from the most violent period of its post-independence history, during which human rights violations have been rampant. Since the late 70s, government security forces have been guilty of widespread human rights abuses as they confronted an armed Tamil separatist movement in the North and East of the island, led since the late 80s by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has engaged in assassinations, mass killings, and suicide bombings. In 1987-89, the government also faced an armed insurrection in the South, led by the People's Liberation Front (JVP). Almost continuously since 1979, the country has operated under national security laws (the Public Security Ordinance of 1947 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1979), supplemented by equally draconian emergency legislation. These laws have been used by successive governments to combat armed groups as well as to curb non-violent opposition.

In this context, the expected policy incidence of the Metagora activity is evident, as (even if the creation of a mechanism for reconciliation and truth is not yet contemplated in the agenda of the peace process) it is now important to establish the truth about human rights violations during the past 20 violent years - as well as to enhance civil society's monitoring capacities. Thanks to a proper use of quantitative approaches and statistical tools and methods for the systematic collection, analysis, and reporting of human rights violations, human rights defenders will be able to examine patterns, magnitude, and responsibility for past violations, as well as to document allegations of ongoing abuses. Establishing a scientifically rigorous record of reported and estimated total numbers of violations, patterns of abuse, and the nature and identity of perpetrators and victims will help to clarify the past, assign responsibility for past violations, and puts an end to perpetrators' sense of impunity. Furthermore, maintaining a record of current abuses will assist in monitoring compliance with commitments made in the text of the peace process, and will also help to shape policy in ways that promote greater human rights protections and accountability. Thus the main objectives of the activity are:

• to inject new, objective and scientifically rigorous evidence into peace process and transitional justice mechanisms;
• to provide human rights NGOs with quantitative tools to improve and augment their human rights monitoring systems; and
• to facilitate pooling and sharing of found and existing data in the development of a massive statistical record of past human rights abuses.

The activity is being implemented by the Human Rights Accountability Coalition (HRAC) that gathers together four local NGOs active in the field of human rights defense:

• Home for Human Rights (HHR),
• Forum for Human Dignity (FHD),
• Institute of Human Rights (IHR), and
• Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA).

HRAC was established in 2000 to support the efforts of its member organizations to collect, collate, systematically analyze, and share data on human rights violations in Sri Lanka. Each of these organizations has its own specific mission and program, but all of them are equally committed to promoting an objective understanding of past and present human rights violations connected to Sri Lanka's ethnic and political conflicts. Since 2001 HRAC has been receiving technical assistance from Mr. Romesh Silva, Metagora associated expert. HRAC field operations are supported by the Asia Foundation (TAF) and generously financed by DANIDA, the Danish co-operation agency.

The preliminary phase of the HRAC initiative (2001-2003) therefore aimed at building a common HRAC technical foundation through the development and implementation of a standard documentation methodology. The HRAC organizations, with the support of HRDAG experts, developed a common systematic framework for collecting and processing data on human rights violations and established quality monitoring procedures for data encoding and processing. A controlled vocabulary was produced, as well as standardized data collection forms and processing/coding quality control measures. A detailed technical reference manual for the HRAC's documentation staff was produced to document guiding principles, technical methods and lessons learned. Training workshops were held to ensure that the field work teams of HRAC member organizations be solidly skilled to implement standardized collection, processing and coding of data.

The main achievement of this preliminary phase of the activity is that the processes of data collection and coding are now consistent across the coalition. Thanks to this, qualitative narrative information is being transformed into hard coded violations data.

After two years of building technical foundations, this year the HRAC initiative entered into a phase of consolidation that encompasses the Metagora working schedule. HRAC data processing is now shifting gears from the low-intensity pilot level of the preliminary phase to a high intensity level by strengthening and expanding the field work teams of HRAC member organizations that are in charge of implementing the data coding process. These teams are gathering together once a week to review the advancement of the work and to discuss on cases of human rights violation presenting particular problems for codification. The work carried out by these teams is impressive and it materializes is a series of robust electronic records of high quality data. The HRAC initiative can be considered today as the world's most accurate and rigorous construction of datasets on human rights violations.