Sri Lanka refused to bow to US demands on Iranian vessels 

By P.K.Balachandran/The Daily Times of Bangladesh

Colombo, March 20 – Sri Lanka has refused to bow to America’s demands on Iranian vessels and their crew now sheltered in the island.

Showing that it has a mind of its own, the small island nation refused to allow US war planes to land at the Mattala airport in South Sri Lanka on March 4 and 8. Colombo also rejected a US demand that the Iranian ship IRS Bushehr and the crew in its care should not be repatriated to Iran. Sri Lanka has told the US that it plans to repatriate them to Iran, but only after the US-Iran conflict ends.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told parliament on Friday, that the request for landing had been made for March 4 and 8. But both requests were rejected, he added. Dissanayake said that two US warplanes were from Djibouti in North East Africa.

“We want to maintain our neutrality despite many pressures. We won’t give in. The Middle East war poses challenges to us, but we will do everything possible to remain neutral. They (the US) wanted to bring in two warplanes armed with eight anti-ship missiles from their base in Djibouti to the Mattala International Airport and we said no,” the Sri Lankan President said.

Meeting With Sergio Gor

Dissanayake’s statement came a day after his meeting with the US Special Envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor. Gor and Dissanayake discussed US efforts to safeguard vital sea lanes and ports, reinforce mutually beneficial trade and commercial ties, and advance a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific, a US State Department statement said.

Sinking of IRIS Dena.

On March 4, the US had torpedoed the Iranian Corvette IRIS Dena 19 nautical miles off Galle, the island’s southern coastal town, killing 84 sailors while 32 were rescued. The ship was returning home from Visakhapatnam in India after a naval fleet review exercise.

Two days later, a second Iranian vessel, Iris Bushehr, sought entry to Colombo port with 219 sailors. Sri Lanka asked the vessel to be diverted to the eastern port of Trincomalee from its anchor outside the Colombo port. A total of 204 of the sailors are now accommodated at the Naval facility near Colombo.

Request on Repatriation Rejected

The United States had pressed Sri Lanka not to repatriate to Iran, the survivors from IRIS Dena and sailors from IRIS Bushehr. President Dissanayake told the US that Sri Lanka had a “humanitarian responsibility” to shelter the crew.
According to Reuters, an internal State Department cable, which was dated March 6, and which has not been previously reported, had emphasized to the Sri Lankan government that neither the IRIS Bushehr crew nor ‌the 32 Dena survivors should be repatriated to Iran. The cable said “Sri Lankan authorities should minimize Iranian attempts to use the detainees for propaganda.”

The cable said that the Israeli ambassador to India and Sri Lanka had been told that there was no plan to repatriate the crew ‌to Iran. The Israeli envoy wanted to know whether there was any engagement with the crew to encourage “defection”, the cable said.

The State Department cable said the second vessel, the IRIS Bushehr, will remain in Sri Lankan custody for the duration of the conflict. A representative for the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for a comment.

Iran’s Request

On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister for Health and Mass Media, Hansaka Wijemuni, told Reuters that Tehran had asked Colombo for help to repatriate the bodies of the dead from IRIS Dena. But the minister said that a timeframe to do so has not yet ‌been determined.

Question of Legality

The torpedoing of IRIS Dena was significant in many ways. By that act, the conflict in West Asia was extended to the Indo-Pacific. The incident also spread the war zone to the area covered by the US 7th Fleet.

The submarine USS Charlotte had launched an MK-48 heavyweight torpedo, said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine. The CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said the US is focused on “sinking the Iranian Navy – the entire Navy,” in a video he posted.

The sinking of IRIS Dena triggered a debate over the attack’s legality. The Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi labelled the attack “an atrocity at sea” and warned that the United States “will come to bitterly regret” the attack.
According to the website “Just Security” during an armed conflict, the world’s oceans are generally split into three areas in the law of naval warfare – (a) neutral waters, (b) belligerent waters, and (c) international waters.

Neutral waters encompass both the territorial sea and internal waters (e.g., ports, bays, rivers, etc.) of neutral States (meaning States that are not a party to the conflict). The 1907 Hague Convention XIII prohibits States from engaging in hostilities against them. States universally recognise that prohibition as customary.
Obviously, warships of the parties to the conflict may exercise “belligerent rights,” including conducting attacks, in their own waters and those of their enemy (meaning the territorial seas and internal waters of States that are a party to the conflict).

They may also engage in hostilities in international waters, which encompasses all waters that lie outside of any neutral State’s territorial sea, including contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and the high seas.
In principle, then, an enemy warship may be engaged anywhere in the world except neutral waters, meaning that belligerent naval operations may lawfully occur across vast expanses of the ocean, including areas that are far removed from the immediate land theatre of any given conflict.

Since the IRIS Dena attack took place in international waters and the law of naval warfare imposes no zones of engagement, there is no issue as to its location, the website said.

Enemy warships and naval auxiliaries, whether “manned or unmanned” are military objectives by nature that may be targeted anywhere and at any time (so long as they are not present in neutral waters).
Also, warships and naval auxiliaries may be targeted regardless of the composition of the crew or passengers on board.

There is no indication that IRIS Dena expressed a desire to surrender, if only because it may have been unaware it was about to be attacked. Iranian officials claim the frigate was attacked without warning. Yet, there are reports that the USS Charlotte twice warned Dena to surrender and abandon ship, but the captain refused to give that order.
However, there is no obligation in the law of naval warfare for a warship to demand surrender before attacking. Warships may be attacked without warning.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister protested that IRIS Dena “was [in the area] by invitation of our Indian friends, attending an international exercise. It was ceremonial. It was unloaded. It was unarmed.”

But that protest has no basis in the law of naval warfare because, as noted, warships are lawful military objectives, Just Security said.

Under the Law of the Sea, a warship is “a ship belonging to the armed forces of a State bearing the external marks distinguishing such ships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by the government of the State and whose name appears in the appropriate service list or its equivalent, and manned by a crew which is under regular armed forces discipline” (UNCLOS).

Just Security says that it its estimation, there is simply no basis to claim that IRIS Dena did not qualify as a military objective at the time of the attack or that the manner of attack was unlawful.

On Rescuing

The only possible question, therefore, is whether the USS Charlotte was obligated to launch rescue of IRIS Dena’s shipwrecked crew.

The law says that after each engagement, Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the shipwrecked, wounded and sick, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled.
Whether the Charlotte (and U.S. forces more broadly) complied with these obligations depends on facts that are not fully available in publicly available sources.

“What we can say is that the submarine was under a legal obligation to take feasible measures to rescue those who were shipwrecked,” Just Security said.

As for calling for assistance, most open source reports do not indicate that Charlotte did so, although the US Indo-Pacific Command stated that “U.S. forces planned for and Sri Lanka provided life-saving support to survivors in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict.”

But even if the Charlotte did not, it was probably unnecessary given Dena’s immediate distress call and the expeditious Sri Lankan activation of SAR assets, assisted by the Indian Navy. Within the hour, SAR forces were on scene. In other words, a call for assistance from the submarine would likely have had no practical effect.

An Insensitive Act

While the US may not have broken any law by downing the IRIS Dena where it did, countries in the region do expect to be taken into confidence before anything of this sort is done in their vicinity. Sharing information in time will have contributed to understanding and cooperation. Even in war, some sensitivity is expected.

END