By Catherine Philp | The Australian
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
Deliberate shelling of civilians by government forces may have killed as many as 40,000 people in the closing stages of Sri Lanka's civil war, a UN war crimes report has found.
"Tens of thousands" of civilians died after the Sri Lankan Government systematically shelled an area that it had previously declared a no-fire zone, where Tamil civilians had been encouraged to gather in the last weeks of the war, the report, which was released last night, said.
It contains damning forensic evidence, in the form of satellite imagery, showing that government artillery was "constantly adjusted to increasingly target the no-fire zone".
The report calls for the establishment of a full UN war crimes investigation into the actions of the Government and the Tamil Tigers, who were also condemned for shooting civilians who tried to flee the area.
The main focus of the report, however, is on the actions of the Government, naming senior civilians and military leaders as those who should be held accountable. All the rebel leaders are now dead with some killed while trying to surrender, another alleged war-crime documented by the report.
UN officials said that they would publish the finding unamended, despite ferocious objections from Sri Lanka, which insists that the panel of inquiry went beyond its mandate, and has warned of "irrevocable damage" to postwar reconciliation efforts.
Yet the leaks so far are widely believed to have come from the Sri Lankan Government, in an apparent attempt to discredit the UN, which is heavily criticised for suppressing its own figures for casualties during the conflict - a failure that the panel says cost civilian lives. The report's finding are consistent with an investigation by The Times immediately after the Tamil Tigers' defeat in May 2009, which established that at least 20,000 civilians had died, the majority as a result of government shelling.
The UN report paints a hellish picture of life inside the "no-fire zone" where 330,000 civilians were gathered, despite the Government's attempts to deflate that figure. Civilians were grouped with rebels to understate the number of innocents and justify the intense shelling.
UN international staff who witnessed the carnage were forced out of the area when their operational hub was shelled. "The UN security officer, a highly experienced military officer, and others present discerned that the shelling was coming from the south, from Sri Lanka army positions," the report said.
"Heavy shelling continued overnight and shells continued to hit the UN hub and the distribution centre, killing numerous civilians.
"When UN staff emerged from the bunker in the first morning light ... mangled bodies and body parts were strewn all around them, including those of many women and children."
UN officials attributed the delayed release of the findings to wrangling with Sri Lanka over an offer to publish their rebuttal alongside the report.
The report also represents a serious challenge to the leadership of the Ban Ki Moon, whose first term as UN Secretary-General will expire shortly.
Meanwhile, a UN panel said yesterday that "tens of thousands" of deaths in the Sri Lankan government's final 2009 offensive against Tamil separatists may amount to war crimes.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon said he could not order an international investigation into the deaths but he has decreed an inquiry into United Nations' actions during the conflict following criticism by the panel.
© The Australian
Read More
Summary only
Reuters | The Jerusalem Post
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he lacks the authority to personally order a probe into the mass killings of civilians in the final months of Sri Lanka's civil war, as a report recommended on Monday.
A panel appointed by Ban said in the report on the 2008-2009 fighting in northeastern Sri Lanka that it found evidence that the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were guilty of war crimes and recommended that those crimes be investigated and suspects prosecuted. It urged him to proceed to establish "an independent international mechanism" to investigate the quarter-century war's final stages.
But Ban said that he could not on his own follow the recommendation of his advisory panel in the more than 200-page report, which has been rejected as biased and fraudulent by the Sri Lankan government.
"In regard to the recommendation that he establish an international investigation mechanism, the Secretary-General is advised that this will require host country (Sri Lankan) consent or a decision from member states through an appropriate intergovernmental forum," Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
© The Jerusalem Post
Read More
Summary only
AFP | The Sydney Morning Herald
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
The Sri Lankan army killed most of the tens of thousands of civilian victims of a final offensive against Tamil separatists in 2009 but both sides may be guilty of war crimes, a UN panel said Monday.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he could not order an international investigation into the deaths. But the UN will hold an inquiry into its actions in the final months of the war following criticism by the panel that more could have been done to save lives.
The panel's report -- angrily opposed by the Sri Lankan government -- painted a barbarous picture of the final offensive on the Tamil enclave in the north of the island that ended a three-decade war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Advertisement: Story continues below
Hospitals, UN centers and Red Cross ships were deliberately shelled by government forces, prisoners shot in the head and women raped, it said. LTTE leaders used 330,000 civilians as a human shield and deliberately shot those who tried to escape.
"Tens of thousands lost their lives from January to May 2009, many of whom died anonymously in the carnage of the final few days," said the three-member panel led by former Indonesian attorney general Marzuki Darsman.
"Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling," the report added.
The UN experts said there were "credible allegations" of serious violations of international law by government forces and the LTTE "some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."
"The government of Sri Lanka should issue a public, formal acknowledgement of its role in responsibility for extensive civilian casualties in the final stages of the war," the experts said.
They called for Sri Lanka to "end all violence by the state," conduct an impartial investigation that meets international standards, help return the remains of the dead to families and pay reparations.
The United Nations should set up an "international mechanism" to monitor the investigation, conduct its own inquiry into violations and safeguard information on the war finale, they added.
Ban said he had been told that Sri Lanka must agree to any international investigation or that it has to be ordered by "an appropriate intergovernmental forum." Officials said this could be the UN Human Rights Council or the UN Security Council.
The panel criticized UN agencies for their actions in the final months of the conflict. Ban said he had agreed to a review.
"During the final stages of the war, the United Nations political organs and bodies failed to take actions that might have protected civilians," the panel said without naming any agencies.
Although international officials had called on the government to stop the shelling of hospitals and UN and international Red Cross targets, the panel said "the public use of casualty figures would have strengthened the call for the protection of civilians" while the deaths were increasing.
Sri Lanka did not immediately respond after the release of the report. It is almost certain to oppose any further action. After parts of the report were leaked to the Sri Lankan media, the government called the work "biased" and "preposterous."
The United Nations said it had offered to let Sri Lanka publish its comments with the report, but the government had not responded.
President Mahinda Rajapakse has called for this year's May Day rally to be turned into a demonstration against any UN investigation.
Ban called on the Sri Lankan government to "respect the work of the UN and its agencies as well as their obligations to the safety of UN safety of UN staff in Colombo."
"He regrets the inflammatory tone of some of the recent public statements emanating from Sri Lanka," said a statement released by his office with the report.
© The Sydney Morning Herald
Read More
Summary only
Interviewed by Ullekh NP | The Economic Times
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
The ruling classes in Sri Lanka are unhappy that a UN panel report has sought a probe into alleged war crimes committed against Tamils in 2009. An angry President Mahinda Rajapakse has called for mass "May Day protests" against such calls for investigations.
Gordon Weiss was the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka in those turbulent times leading to the capture and assassination of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief V Prabhakaran. He left the UN soon, declining the offer of a new assignment in favour of writing about innocent civilians caught in the crossfire between the ruthless Lankan forces and the Tigers. He returned home, to Australia, early last year and started writing the book, The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka & the Last Days of the Tigers, months before the United Nations set up a team to review the "military conquest" of the Tigers. He says the panel's report vindicates his earlier statements about the war crimes of 2009. His book, as revelatory as it is incisive, comes at a time when Rajapakse plans to showcase to the world his country's counter-insurgency prowess.
In an interview with Ullekh NP, Weiss terms as "naA¯ve" a proposed convention in Colombo in May to share such military experiences with other countries. He also talks about his book, Sri Lankan politics , media manipulation , Prabhakaran, India, China, majoritarianism and the roots of future conflicts in the island nation. Edited Excerpts:
How do you describe the current situation in Sri Lanka?
In most ways, the situation is much better if you are a part of the majority who supports the government. I haven't been there for a year and a half, but there is no more war, the island is relatively stable, tourists are flooding back, the economy's doing well, just as it ought to be. But democratic pillars-the law courts, the media, the Parliament-have been weakened. The dynastic ambitions of the Rajapakse clan are now plain. And then there is the issue of possibly tens of thousands of dead and unaccounted for civilians from the end of the war. Is that a healthy way to build a society? This is a contentious debate. I don't think it is, which is why in my book I look back at the mass killings of Sinhalese youths during the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) insurgencies [Marxist uprisings against the government in Sri Lanka first in 1971 and later in 1987-1989] and argue that the alleged war crimes of 2009 were predictable.
How bad is manipulation of the media in that country?
A curious mixture of great level-headed analysis and reporting, and utter foul-mouthed tripe unhindered by any apparent functional legal or ethical constraints. Too often, in what is a highly literate society, the press in Sri Lanka are part of the problem. Then there is some very good stuff coming out of organisations like Groundviews (a website for citizen journalists). But a lot of the press are controlled by the government, or allowed to print and broadcast only because they are controllable.
In times of war, the wage of journalism is sometimes death. What was the message of the brutal killing of Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of the Sunday Leader, two years ago?
The bottom line is that in Sri Lanka if you become too great an irritation, you might be killed. That implicit threat undermines the core function of the press in any democracy, which is to professionally irritate, pick, scour and scrutinise. Lasantha's murder sent a definitive message-nobody who dissents can consider themselves safe.
How strange was the experience of Buddhism of the non-violent kind?
To encounter extremism in Buddhism strikes an Australian, at least, as a deep contradiction. I received the blessing of the Dalai Lama in India as a 20-year-old, read his writings, and have always been drawn to Buddhism. The lesson of Sri Lanka's strife is that any teaching can be perverted into a hateful ideology. It is true that a small minority of Buddhist monks sits in Parliament and promotes great intolerance and war. But I choose to believe that that level of extremism is believed by only a minority of Buddhists on the island. Many Buddhists I knew were at a loss to marry their deepest beliefs with the actions that were being carried out on their behalf.
© The Economic Times
Read More
Summary only
UN News Centre
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
The panel of experts set up to advise Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on accountability issues with respect to the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka has found credible reports of war crimes committed by both the Government and Tamil rebels and calls for genuine investigations into the allegations, according to a report made public today by the United Nations.
The decision to release the report, which was submitted to the Secretary-General on 12 April and shared with the Sri Lankan Government, was made as a “matter of transparency and in the broader public interest,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement.
“The Secretary-General sincerely hopes that this advisory report will make a contribution to full accountability and justice so that the Sri Lankan Government and people will be able to proceed towards national reconciliation and peace,” the statement added.
Mr. Ban is carefully reviewing the report’s conclusions and recommendations, “including its disturbing assessment that a number of allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by both the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka are credible, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Government forces declared victory over the rebel LTTE in May 2009 after a conflict that had raged on and off for nearly three decades and killed thousands of people. The conflict ended with large numbers of Sri Lankans living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially in the north of the island country.
The panel found credible allegations that comprise five core categories of potential serious violations committed by the Government in the final stages of the conflict, including killing of civilians through widespread shelling and the denial of humanitarian assistance.
The credible allegations concerning the LTTE comprise six core categories of potential serious violations, including using civilians as a human buffer and killing civilians attempting to flee LTTE control.
The panel’s first recommendation is that the Government of Sri Lanka should respond to the serious allegations by initiating an effective accountability process beginning with genuine investigations.
“The Secretary-General has consistently held the view that Sri Lanka should, first and foremost, assume responsibility for ensuring accountability for the alleged violations,” said the statement, adding that he encourages the Government to respond constructively to the recommendations made by the panel.
Mr. Ban has decided that he will respond positively to the panel’s recommendation for a review of the UN’s actions regarding the implementation of its humanitarian and protection mandates during the war in Sri Lanka – particularly in the last stages – and its aftermath. The modality of such a review will be determined after consultations with relevant agencies, funds and programmes.
“In regard to the recommendation that he establish an international investigation mechanism, the Secretary-General is advised that this will require host country consent or a decision from Member States through an appropriate intergovernmental forum,” the statement added.
The three-member panel of experts was set up following the Joint Statement made by Mr. Ban and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa after the Secretary-General visited the South Asian nation shortly after the end of the conflict.
The members of the panel were Marzuki Darusman of Indonesia (chair), Yasmin Sooka of South Africa and Steven Ratner of the United States. They began their work in September 2010.
© UN News Centre
Read More
Summary only
Al Jazeera
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
A UN panel said that "tens of thousands" of deaths in the Sri Lankan government's final 2009 offensive against Tamil separatists may amount to war crimes.
In a 200-page report released on Monday, the three-member panel estimated that some 40,000 civilians were killed in the civil war--the first UN estimate of the death toll.
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said that he could not order an international investigation into the deaths but he has decreed an inquiry into United Nations' actions during the conflict following criticism by the panel.
The UN panel was set up following a visit by Ban to Sri Lanka shortly after the end of the conflict.
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey, reporting from UN headquarters in New York, said that the report also criticised the UN "for failing to protect civilians" by reporting the death toll during the waning days of the war.
"If the UN had been forthcoming in providing death toll during the war, perhaps lives could have been saved," Saloomey said.
She added that Ban was trying to use the report as a leverage against the Sri Lankan government, so that it would permit full-fledged investigation into the conflict, "but it appears that no deal was reached."
War crimes denied
The Sri Lankan government criticised the move as "an unwarranted and unnecessary interference with a sovereign nation".
The UN group's official mandate called on it to examine "the modalities, applicable international standards and comparative experience with regard to accountability processes" relating to the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
Government forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 after a quarter-century conflict that killed thousands of people. The end of the war displaced large numbers of people in the north of the island state.
Sri Lanka's government denies any war crimes were committed but human-rights groups say both the government and the Tamil Tigers, who were seeking to set up a separate Tamil state, were guilty of rights violations.
Sri Lanka set up its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which human-rights groups have said lacks credibility and impartiality. The commission is due to report to the government next month.
A Sri Lankan government spokesman said last December the UN panel "will be given visas only to testify before the LLRC if they request [that] and not for any investigations".
UN officials said they understood that because of that restriction, the UN panel had not visited Sri Lanka.
In a statement last week, Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights monitor, said that almost two years after the war, Sri Lanka had "taken no steps to hold anyone on either side of the conflict accountable for serious violations of international law".
Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, praised Ban's decision to make the report public, saying it "will help move justice forward in Sri Lanka".
© Al Jazeera
Read More
Summary only
By V Suresh | The Weekend Leader
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
Will a UN report lie? Will an Expert Panel specially set up by the UN Secretary General to examine allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity be biased, partisan, project half truths and deliberately malign a state?
The questions may be startling to many of us; but to the Government of Sri Lanka, the UN is their current enemy. Just the talk of any of the UN agencies examining allegations of military excesses or war crimes committed by the Lankan army during its war against the LTTE is enough to elicit angry outbursts from Sri Lankan leaders against the world body.
What has caused the latest round of vitriol and spitfire is the leaked Report of the Expert Panel of the UN Secretary General. The Report, which was submitted recently, confirmed that the Sri Lankan security forces had indeed committed grave war crimes and crimes against humanity during the last stages of the war against the LTTE in 2008- 2009.
The 3-member Expert Panel found credible evidence of the Sri Lankan war machine having shelled hospitals and `No Fire Zones’, where fleeing Tamil civilians were encouraged to gather. While Sri Lanka officially proclaimed that it would not use heavy weapons and explosives, the Expert Panel concluded that the Sri Lankan forces systematically bombed places of civilian concentration causing deaths of thousands of Tamils.
Apart from using heavy artillery and bombs, the Government of Sri Lanka used a much more potent device to deadly effect: the government and its forces effectively created a blockade around the Vanni region in North Sri Lanka to prevent any flow of humanitarian relief materials from reaching the people. Hospitals without medicines had to conduct amputations without tranquillizers or pain killers; surgeries were conducted under trees as wards were being targeted for bombing.
Acute shortage of water and food killed hundreds more. As the Report noted, the Government deliberately underestimated the number of civilians caught in the conflict zone so as to deprive supply of food, water and medicine supplies.
The Report also highlighted violations of human rights committed by the LTTE including its using civilians as human shields, forced conscription of child soldiers, killing of civilians seeking to flee from their control and forced labour. But as the Report itself notes, during the final months, the LTTE was a depleted force and though the violations were major, that could not be used to justify war excesses committed by the state of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has called upon all patriotic Sri Lankans - to be read as all loyal Sinhalese - to gather in millions on Labour Day, 1st May, 2011, in Colombo to express their resentment at the UN Expert Panel’s Report.
Lost in the din of fury and brimstone is the bitter truth that the Sri Lankan Government cannot hide its record of terror as respected and expert UN bodies have investigated and brought out reports about different aspects of the breakdown of democratic and judicial systems.
The 2008 Reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Inhuman, Cruel or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Manfred Nowak, highlight the systematic way by which rule of law has been replaced with `rule of impunity’ in Sri Lanka.
In particular the Reports highlight how the rogue state is dangerous not because a few `rogue officials’ abuse the law, but because of widespread belief amongst bureaucracy and military that killing and maiming people was as much part of their job to protect their country.
While the Tamils were the general focus of state terrorism, individuals from the majority community who dared to challenge or question the Sri Lankan junta were not spared. Courageous and independent voices who expressed concern over the trampling of democracy, democratic ethics and constitutional norms were exterminated through painful deaths.
Lasantha Wickrathunge, Editor of Sunday Leader was brutally murdered in broad daylight, by paid killers allegedly hired by a Minister of the Sri Lankan government. Till date the killers have not been identified or booked.
On 9th February, 2009, 10 top UN Experts issued a statement sharing the deep concern of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights over the rapidly deteriorating conditions facing civilians in the Vanni region and the significant number of civilian casualties. Importantly they pointed out:
"Notwithstanding the severity of the abuses in areas of conflict, the Experts wish to highlight that the problem is deeper and more endemic. The conflict deflects attention from the impunity which has been allowed to go unabated throughout Sri Lanka. The fear of reprisals against victims and witnesses, together with a lack of effective investigations and prosecutions, has led to a circle of impunity that must be broken. The Experts continue to receive disturbing reports of torture, extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances throughout the country."
In end May 2009 international human rights groups pressurized the UN Human Rights Council, which was meeting in Geneva to consider a resolution moved by a handful of nations including Germany, US and others to investigate war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army in the final stages of the war between January - May, 2009.
India, China and some other nations whipped up `third world’ sentiment to block such a move and managed to mobilize support from Cuba, Venezuela and other countries against the conspiracy of `former imperialist nations’ seeking to spread lies about Sri Lanka’s meritorious army victories over separatist Tamils!
Should anyone have any more doubt about the reality that the current Sri Lankan regime has `blood on its hands’?
The UN Expert Panel’s report is at once a call of conscience as also a bugle sound for safeguarding the principal tenets of justice, accountability, democracy and rule of law.
All those who love democracy and cherish human rights should at least now fearlessly stand up and be part of the campaign of global citizens who demand that the killers of thousands of innocent Tamils in the final stages of the war in the period January - May, 2009 are brought to book.
At stake is not a mere legal principle, but the assertion of fundamental principles of democracy and humanity.
V Suresh is President of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) – Tamil Nadu & Puducherry
© The Weekend Leader
Read More
Summary only
By Joe Lauria | The Wall Street Journal
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
A U.N.-appointed panel found that allegations of war crimes committed by the Sri Lanka government and the Tamil Tigers during the final battles of their 27-year war are credible and could lead to formal charges if investigated.
The panel's report also criticized the U.N. for not revealing casualty figures at the time. Doing so, it said, "would have strengthened the call for protection of civilians."
The struggle between Sri Lanka and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, came to an end after an intense battle over a 13.5 square mile area in the northeast of the country, where as many as 330,000 civilians were trapped between the warring sides, said the 216-page report.
The report said the government shelled "on a large scale" three No Fire Zones "where it had encouraged the civilian population to concentrate, even after indicating that it would cease the use of heavy weapons."
The report said the government also systemically shelled hospitals and food-distribution lines, and fired close to Red Cross ships coming to pick up wounded civilians.
The Tamil Tigers, meanwhile, barred civilians from fleeing, shooting some to keep them from escaping, the report said. The rebels forced civilians as young as 14 years old to fight, and used civilians to dig trenches and as "hostages" and a "strategic human buffer" in battle, the panel said.
"All this was done in a quest to pursue a war that was clearly lost," the report said, adding that "many civilians were sacrificed on the altar of the LTTE cause and its efforts to preserve its senior leadership."
The Sri Lankan government has denied the allegations. Tamil Tiger representatives couldn't be reached to comment.
Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the final months of the battle, from January to May 2009. The government caused most of the civilian causalities in this final phase of the war, the report concluded.
The allegations of war crimes can't be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court, because Sri Lanka isn't a member. While the panel called on the Sri Lankan government to conduct a full investigation, it said that it has "little confidence that it will serve justice in the existing political environment" because of a lack of "political will."
The Sri Lankan government has mounted anti-U.N. rallies around the country to protest the report.
In a statement released with the report on Monday evening, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the panel's recommendation for an international investigation couldn't take place without Sri Lanka's consent or a decision by nations in an "appropriate intergovernmental forum."
Only the U.N. Security Council can order an ICC investigation in a country that doesn't belong to the court or refuses to carry out its own credible probe. Mr. Ban said he would review criticism of the U.N. made by the panel
© The Wall Street Journal
Read More
Summary only
Associated Press | Yahoo! News
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he will only launch an international investigation into allegations of possible war crimes at the end of Sri Lanka's civil war two years ago if the government agrees, which is highly unlikely, or member states call for a probe.
A statement from Ban's spokesman late Monday publicly releasing a report by a U.N. panel said the secretary-general has been advised that he needs government consent or a decision from member states in an international forum. He didn't specify a forum but it could include the U.N. Security Council, General Assembly or Human Rights Council.
The panel's report, previously leaked to a Sri Lankan newspaper, called for an investigation of the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels.
© Yahoo! News
Read More
Summary only
BBC Sinhala
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
Governments that provided weapons to the Sri Lankan military during the last stages of the war should also be investigated, says a former UN spokesman.
Gordon Weiss told BBC Sinhala service, Sandeshaya that there were high civilian casualties when the Sri Lankan military moved in to overtake the Tamil Tigers in May 2009.
UK, USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel are some of the countries that provided military assistance to Sri Lanka.
On the eve of the release of a report by an advisory panel to the UN Secretary General (UNSG) on accountability issues with respect to the conflict in Sri Lanka, Mr Weiss says that many countries were aware of the mounting civilian casualties in Sri Lanka.
'40,000 civilians killed'
The report due be made public on Monday, has made highly serious accusations against the Sri Lanka military, as well as the Tamil Tigers.
"If foreign governments knew what was going on this latter stage of the war and continued to supply arms, then I think it is a matter worthy of investigations in those countries," said Gordon Weiss.
The report leaked by The Island newspaper says it estimates that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final phase of the conflict.
"Two years after the end of the war, there is still no reliable figure for civilian deaths, but multiple sources of information indicate that a range of up to 40,000 civilian deaths cannot be ruled out at this stage" it said.
The former UN spokesman said the Indian government which wanted to "see the Tamil Tigers destroyed" was "fully aware" of the real situation in the battle zone.
"I believe that Indians were aware of the civilian casualties that were happening, because they had pretty good intelligence inside the siege zone," he told BBC Sandeshaya.
© BBC Sinhala
Read More
Summary only
By Dasun Edirisinghe | The Island
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
The Inter-University Students Federation says it will not allow President Rajapaksa’s government to militarise Universities. The IUSF, affiliated to the JVP, yesterday launched a protest campaign at university level to pressure the government to drop a controversial plan to force the next batch to undergo military training before the beginning of their academic programme.
IUSF Convener Sanjeewa Bandara told The Island that the programme was part of a sordid UPFA operation to militarise universities.
Higher education secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha Nawaratne last week declared that a leadership programme would commence on May 23, subsequent to a three month - English course.
"Undergraduates should never be placed under the military. The Higher Education Ministry can conduct leadership programmes at Universities without forcing undergraduates to receive instructions from the military," Bandara said. He said that undergraduates would protest opposite universities beginning Monday (25) to Friday. This would be followed by a black flag protest, he said, adding they would also wear black armbands at lectures.
The IUSF was also in the process in planning a major protest in Colombo against the Higher Education ministry’s move.
© The Island
Read More
Summary only
By P C Vinoj Kumar | The Weekend Leader
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
The long awaited moment of justice is at hand. It may take a year or two, or even a decade or more, but the arm of justice has just stretched out, and it will hunt the man, even if he takes shelter under the wings of regional powers or invokes the mantra of patriotism to mobilise the masses in the streets of Colombo.
It is too late to change the script. The plot has thickened, and the stage set for a happy ending. The villain will be held accountable for his war crimes and crimes against humanity.
No power on earth can save the man, the man accused of killing thousands of innocent civilians in the name of a war that was fought with the most unfair means, and without witnesses.
The ball has been set rolling to secure justice – justice for the innocent blood spilled and limbs severed, for the thousands of orphaned children, whose cries were hushed up by a conspiracy of silence of the pens.
No longer will the blackout work. The issue has gone beyond the subcontinent, beyond the scope of those who manipulate news in India, and beyond regional geopolitics.
Even if China or India or any other power may use its influence to stop the wheels of justice from rolling forward, move it would, slowly or in spurts, till it achieves its intended purpose.
Empires have fallen. Mighty men thought to be invincible are crumbling before people’s power. These are mere reminders that justice would finally catch up, keeping its time with destiny, a time pre-appointed for everyone.
Listen, Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Damocles’ sword is now over your head. The countdown has begun. Justice cannot be subverted in the streets of Colombo, by mobilising your thugs and goondas, to whom you may be a hero.
The three-member United Nations Expert Committee that investigated all those allegations that the world has been hearing about your banana republic has submitted its report, which understandably is not to your liking. The Committee has advised the UN Secretary- General to set up an independent mechanism to monitor the Sri Lankan government’s investigation into the various allegations – of civilian killings, disappearances etc – related to the final days of the war with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) in 2009.
Knowing what kind of an investigation your banana republic is capable of conducting, the panel has also suggested the Secretary General to “conduct investigations independently into the alleged violations.”
The game is up, Rajapaksa. It took nearly two years for the ghosts of Mullivaikal to make their presence known. They will continue to haunt you till they receive justice.
The moment you dread deep down in your heart is drawing nearer. You gave it away when you said you were prepared to go to the gallows to save your motherland on hearing about the UN report. Smart man you are; you can see the writing on the wall?
© The Weekend Leader
Read More
Summary only
BBC News
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
The UN has said widespread shelling by the Sri Lankan government killed most of the tens of thousands of civilians who died in the final months of the 25-year-long war, in 2009.
The report also accuses Tamil Tigers separatists of using civilians as human shields.
The UN is calling for an independent investigation into what it says could constitute war crimes.
Sri Lanka had asked the UN not to publish its findings.
It said the report could damage reconciliation efforts.
The government has consistently denied allegations that it targeted civilians, and has rejected the report's findings as biased and fraudulent.
'Public interest'
In a statement, the secretary general's spokesperson said: "The decision to release the report was made as a matter of transparency and in the broader public interest."
He said a copy of the report had been made available "in its entirety" to the government of Sri Lanka on 12 April, adding that the Sri Lankan government had failed to respond to a repeated offer to publish its response to the panel's finding alongside the report.
The panel recommends that the Sri Lankan government should respond to the serious allegations "by initiating an effective accountability process beginning with genuine investigations".
The BBC's Barbara Plett, in New York, says that a divided Security Council was initially reluctant to address Sri Lanka's war and much less call for an inquiry.
However, the secretary general appointed the panel after mounting evidence of serious human rights abuses and massive civilian casualties in the five-month offensive which ended the war.
© BBC News
Read More
Summary only
