Daily Mirror Online
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Minister of External Affairs Prof G L Peiris, Secretary to the President, Lalith Weerathunga and Treasury Secretary Dr P B Jayasundara also took part in the discussions.
The two sides examined ways and means of further strengthening bilateral relations between Sri Lanka and the United States and identified several areas for the expansion of bilateral cooperation. The US Assistant Secretary offered to increase training facilities for Sri Lankan officials and others in the United States, the President’s office added.
© Daily Mirror Online
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sri Lanka President, US envoy discuss ties
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Death threats to journalist’s family in Sri Lanka
Press Release | International Federation of Journalists
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“We call upon the Sri Lankan police and security agencies to take immediate measures to investigate the source of the threats and to extend all necessary protection to Pushpakumara’s family,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said.
Pushpakumara, who is an executive committee member of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists’ Association (SLWJA) and secretary of the program producers’ union of the state-owned Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), was summarily dismissed from employment at SLRC after presidential elections in Sri Lanka in January.
The dismissal followed Pushpakumara’s active leadership in the union’s demands that the SLRC follow specified norms of fairness in its coverage of the presidential election campaign.
Pushpakumara has since left his home town of Horana, near Colombo, for safety reasons. But his family remains, and on the evening of July 12, had two visitors who spoke in a threatening manner to his wife Waruni Balasooriya.
They alleged that Pushpakumara was a “Sinhala tiger”, a tacit supporter of the Tamil secessionist movement that was defeated in May 2009 after a quarter-century-long civil war.
Ms Balasooriya was also warned not to report the threat to police for fear of violent retribution. The IFJ has learnt that a complaint was nevertheless filed at the Horana police station on July 14.
“As Sri Lanka faces increasing international scrutiny over its human rights record and the newly re-elected president’s intent to pursue a policy of national reconciliation, the safety and well-being of media personnel will be a crucial benchmark against which progress will be assessed,” White said.
“Unfortunately, recent actions by the Sri Lankan authorities indicate that they remain disinclined to take action against the use of coercion and threats of violence that attempt to silence journalists who courageously speak the truth to power.”
© International Federation of Journalists
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
I am every asylum seeker
By Greg Foyster | Eureka Street
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I worked as an architect, building up my business. I worked as a negotiator, liaising with the government. I worked as an engineer. I worked as a veterinarian. I worked as an accountant.
I am a member of the Hazara ethnic group. I am opposed to the government's occupation of Kashmir. I am a firm believer in women's rights. I am a whistleblower for government corruption. I am an ethnic Tamil.
I was held down while I watched my father beaten to death. I was kidnapped by the government and taken to an interrogation room. I was knocked out with the butt of a rifle. I was shot three times. I was arrested and put in a camp.
They kept me in a solitary cell for four days without food or water. They drove a nail through my thumb and put fresh chilli in the wound. They beat the soles of my feet with canes. They pulled out my fingernails. They placed a metal roller on my shins and applied pressure until I screamed.
I bribed a guard to help me escape in the middle of the night. I fled through the mountains and a farmer smuggled me across the border. I hid underground for five months. I sold my property and used the money for a plane ticket. I cut a hole in the wire fence and crawled through the jungle to a safehouse.
I got on the first boat I could, wherever it was going. I paid a man $7000 to take me somewhere safe, but he left with my money. I spent months in Indonesia hiding in the forest. I was dumped in the middle of the ocean and had to swim to shore. I arrived on Ashmore Reef and collapsed from thirst and heat exhaustion.
I was so relieved to be in Australia! I was happy to be safe from the militia! I was alive, I was overjoyed, I was finally free!
I was then locked up on Christmas Island for three years without a lawyer. I was put behind bars and razor wire in the middle of the desert. I was called by a number not a name. I was kept in an isolation cell. I was beaten and abused by the guards.
Why am I locked up if I haven't committed a crime? How can I be in prison without a trial? Why can't they treat me like a human being? Why am I kept here all alone? Why haven't I been told when this will end?
I am depressed and have constant headaches. I am frightened and wake up screaming. I am losing my mind. I have sewn my lips together. I have tried to kill myself.
I didn't want to be a refugee. I didn't want to come to your country. I didn't want to leave my family. I didn't want to lose my house. I didn't want to have to start again.
I am not here to get rich. I am not here to receive charity. I am not here to steal your job. I am not here to cheat the system. I am not here by choice.
I am here because otherwise I would be dead. I am here because the militia threatened to kill me and my family. I am here because I was shot. I am here because my house was burned down. I am here because I have nowhere else to go.
I was born in a dangerous land. I was persecuted for who I am and what I believe. I was tortured in an interrogation room. I was dumped in the ocean. I was locked up in detention.
I am an asylum seeker, every asylum seeker, and this is my story. I am not a 'queue jumper'. I am not an 'illegal arrival'. I am not a 'political issue'.
I am a human being. Please treat me like one.
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Greg Foyster is a freelance journalist who's written for The Age, The Big Issue, Crikey and New Matilda. The above stories are based on letters from asylum seekers in detention.
© Eureka Street
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sri Lanka Army to construct permanent base in demolished Koappaay LTTE cemetry
Tamil Net
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Hundreds of uprooted families from Vanni and Valikaamam North had settled in the area in Koappaay where SLA now wants to construct a building complex for its 512 Division with the intention of occupying the area permanently, the sources added.
SLA says that the presence of the uprooted civilians in the area near their base is unsafe for its personnel, according to the uprooted civilians.
The affected civilians further complained that no politician so far had come forward to solve their problems including the SLA orders to evacuate their dwellings.
Koappaay Raasa Veethi, the main thoroughfare in the area that is to be occupied by SLA, faces the risk of being closed for public use.
SLA is actively engaged in setting up permanent bases in Jaffna with the intention of reducing the number SLA personnel occupying Jaffna town area.
© Tamil Net
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
UN panel on Sri Lanka meets with Vijay Nambiar
By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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On June 22, UN Spokesman Nesirky said the Panel would finish "within four months of the commencement of its work." So are these three days of meeting not "work"?
On July 19, Inner City Press observed and exclusively reported on the Panel's three members meeting in the UN's North Lawn building, with Lynn Pascoe, Nicholas Haysom and then across First Avenue in the UN's DC-1 building. Inner City Press quoted panel member Steven Ratner than no further “UN permission” will be needed for the panel to seek to travel to Sri Lanka.
At the UN's July 20 noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Spokesman Martin Nesirky for confirmation, including that the four month reporting clock had started, about who else the Panel met with and how the Panel will be staffed.
Mr. Nesirky, after congratulating Inner City Press for its observation of the panel, add that the members will also meet with the Croatian Assistant Secretary General representing Navi Pillay in New York, with Under Secretaries General John Holmes and Patricia O'Brien and, it emerges, with “chef de cabinet” Vijay Nambiar.
Beyond Mr. Nambiar's controversial involvement in the surrender of Tamil Tiger leaders who were subsequently murdered, Nambiar earlier this week wrote a six page defense of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, saying that he has “led from the front on important political issues from Gaza to Haiti to Sudan.” Interestingly, Sri Lanka was not listed, either because it is not deemed important, or Mr. Ban can't be said to have “led from the front.”
Nambiar's memo makes much of the UN's hiring rules. Inner City Press asked Nesirky whether UN hiring rules will apply to the staffing of the Panel of Experts.
Nesirky replied that the staffing is being done under the aegis of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
Nesirky announced that the top staffer will not be Ms. Pillay's friend Jessica Neuwirth, as Inner City Press was previously told by both well placed UN staff and ambassadors of both Permanent Five Security Council members and impacted member states.
Now, the top staffer will be Richard Barrett, who previously served in Nepal. “Score one against nepotism,” one of the source ambassadors told Inner City Press after Tuesday's noon briefing.
If the Panel's members are only in New York for three days and then leaving, when will they return, and when with the four month reporting clock begin?
Again, on June 22, UN Spokesman Nesirky said the Panel would finish "within four months of the commencement of its work." Some wonder if, just as Ban Ki-moon delayed over 80 days between announcing he would name a panel and actually naming one, now there is unlimited delay in starting the four month reporting clock.
© Inner City Press
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sri Lanka worried about journalism?
By Sutirtho Patranobis | Hindustan Times
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And, which critics said is often used to sue journalists for defamation and help the Singapore government to regulate free speech.
But the media authority here will do no such thing, a minister promised.
"What we intend is to give a professional recognition to journalists in line with other professional bodies in the country. Journalists are the unofficial agents of the masses," media minister K Rambukwella said.
I am happily sure that the first journalists to be given any kind of recognition, official or otherwise, would certainly be the critical ones.
It's also heartening to know how one government can easily emulate another if an aspect of governance suits the first one's definition of best practices in a field.
For example, if the Lankan government was looking at the Singapore MDA model to vigorously promote journalistic ethics, Pakistan in June talked about setting up the 'media coordination committee on defence planning' – which sounded coincidentally like the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) here.
The MCNS, in short, has the job of keeping journalists always embedded psychologically with the government even if not in the flesh every time," he said.
In between these guidelines, some journalists – who need to be most urgently taught the virtues of professionalism – slip, fall and disappear.
Some, like Prageeth Eknaligoda, cartoonist and analyst for a pro-opposition website, seems to have disappeared for ever. Eknaligoda went missing on January 24, 2010; some said he is hiding for publicity, others pointed out that he's seeking asylum abroad.
But the government, for nearly six months, hasn't said anything about him.
In May, well-wishers put together an exhibition of his acerbic political illustrations titled 'Cave Art of the 21st Century'. The ethics symbolised in his works were not from this century but certainly from the cave man's era.
© Hindustan Times
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sri Lankan minister confirms killing of top rebel leaders while in military custody?
JDS
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Minister of Rehabilitation and Prisons Reforms, Dew Gunasekera who undertook a visit to the north and met groups of war widows last week has told a Colombo-based newspaper on record that among the ‘widows’ whom he had met in Jaffna were wives of Balakumaran and Yogaratnam Yogi.
The Minister’s statement indirectly confirms that some of the top leaders of the Tamil Tiger rebels have been killed while in military custody by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which is already facing international war crime charges for allegedly executing top unarmed Tiger leaders when surrendering with white flags.
It is not immediately known whether Balakumaran and Yogi were killed in an execution-style murder or tortured to death.
Minister Gunasekera has also acknowledged that there had not been a detailed study on LTTE widows, though various NGOs and government officials from time to time had given different figures since the conclusion of the war in May last year.
He has said that his ministry had called for applications from people of the Northern Province before meeting them in three separate groups in Jaffna (July 10), Kilinochchi (11) and Vavuniya (12).
Minister Gunasekara has said that of the 8,000 who had responded to his ministry’s call, about 98 per cent were young women.
Yogaratnam Yogi was a member of the LTTE negotiating team which had series of talks with the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s government.
Balakumaran was formerly the leader of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) and joined the LTTE in the early 1990s before coming one of its ideologues.
On May 31, 2009, Lankafirst.com website quoting Government Information Department sources, reported that some top Tiger leaders who were in the military hand, were going through series of serious investigation by the security forces.
“Former eastern province political wing leader and subsequently in charge of the economic division Karikalan, former spokesman of the LTTE Yogaratnam Yogi , former EROS MP turned advisor to the LTTE V. Balakumar , a former spokesman of the LTTE Lawrence Tilagar, former Deputy political section leader Thangan , former head of the political section for Jaffna district Ilamparithi , former Trincomalee political wing leader Elilan, former head of the LTTE sports division Papa , former head of the administrative division of the LTTE Puvannan and deputy international head Gnanam are in custody,” it said.
A report by the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) also said December last year that Balakumar and his son teenaged Sooriyatheepan surrendered to the 53 army Division near Irattaivaykkal, along the Nanthikadal lagoon on May 16.
“Like Balakumar, many top LTTE leaders reportedly surrendered in the last three days of the war, between May 16 and 19 (2009)”.
The UTHR-J report mentioned the following top leaders as having surrendered: Karikalan (former eastern province political wing leader and subsequently in charge of the economic disivion), Yogaratnam Yogi (former spokesman of the LTTE), Lawrence Tilagar (a former spokesman of the LTTE, a one time head of LTTE office in Paris and later in charge of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation), Thangan (former Deputy political section leader), Ilamparithi (former head of the political section for Jaffna district), Elilan (former Trincomalee political wing leader), Papa (former head of the LTTE sports division), Puvannan (former head of the administrative division of the LTTE), Gnanam (deputy international head) and Tamilini head of the Women’s political wing.
According to the government reports, over 11,000 LTTE detainees are kept in special camps. None of the international rights groups, even the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been granted access to many of these camps to date.
Internation media reports said last week that former Tamil Tiger rebels detained in Sri Lanka say they have been tortured and ill-treated in government camps with no basic facilities.
In letters and phone calls to the BBC, the ex-militants have said that they had been "tortured and beaten" in the detention centres.
"Military officers often call us dogs - even if we don't shave for a day we are beaten up badly," the BBC report said quoting one of the detainees’ letters as saying.
One letter written by a woman from the eastern town of Trincomalee said some young detainees had been "beaten black and blue".
"Some are hanged upside down. Some are made to lie down in the floor and beaten with belts and sticks. They don't take the injured to hospital," the woman has told the BBC.
© Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
‘UN advisory panel an an attempt to put a foot in the door’ says Rajeeva Wijesinghe
Interviewed by Matt Abud | Radio Australia
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Well, I don’t think it is supposed to be for looking at war crimes, according to Ban Ki-moon at least, as opposed to all the hype. It’s not to look into abuses, it is to advise him on the best way of proceeding with regard to what he claims is his interpretation of the agreement he signed with the President. I think, if you look at it very carefully, you see Ban Ki-moon is in a bit of a bind, because there’s a lot of pressure on him obviously to make some sort of statement about Sri Lanka. And on the whole he’s been quite good about this, about not letting himself be carried away, but with all this pressure mounting he had to find a way of doing this within the legalities of the UN Charter.
Sorry, he couldn’t actually set up a panel himself but he can set up an advisory group, that’s what you are saying?
Well, he can’t even set up an advisory group which is tantamount to interference in internal affairs of a state, unless he can anchor it in some way on saying, well, he’s got the concurrence of the state, which he definitely doesn’t. So what he did is he claimed - have a look at the terms of reference - that he reached an agreement with the Sri Lanka President last May. There’s a statement, and I don’t know whether you have read it, it’s a joint statement. And the very clear interpretation of that is that there should be accountability, but this is for the Sri Lanka Government to pursue.
So, nevertheless there is an advisory panel that has been set up. What has been the reaction to that, given the context that you’ve just put?
Well, I think that the Government thinks it’s a wrong thing that has been done. In fact, I don’t think you could do better than look at what emerged in the main opposition party, the leader of the opposition thinks this panel is a good thing but the person who is likely to take over the leadership of the opposition said very clearly that he thought this was absolutely wrong.
So, you would say and the Government would say that this really is an interference in the sovereignty of Sri Lankan affairs?
Well, I would say that it’s an attempt to put a foot in the door which could be used by other interested parties to attempt to interfere. The reason I say this is that although the Secretary General has said is that the panel is to advise him and even his spokesman says that, for that reason, it doesn’t matter that they are not going to come to Sri Lanka, one member of the panel said that he regrets that he can’t come to Sri Lanka because he can’t do his job properly. So obviously some people in the panel don’t quite understand the limitations that the Secretary General has tried very legalistically to put on the panel, and part of the problem is that people misunderstand each other all the time. It’s a bit sad that the Secretary General’s agents are contradicting what the Secretary General’s people are saying, that they don’t need to come to Sri Lanka.
Now, the protests that have been taking place over the past few days in front of the UN Headquarters in Colombo, they’ve been described as I guess very boisterous and as having blockaded the UN staff in there for at least the first day in which they took place. Is this reaction in tune with the public reaction or is this really a much more I guess powerful or strong reaction to this issue?
I don’t quite know what happened yesterday. I read the reports in the papers today which said there had been demonstrations and the staff had not come out. But then it had been agreed obviously that they could leave and they had done so. I think the UN had decided not to call people into work today. I mean, the traffic was disrupted but as you know we don’t have laws against demonstrations in this country. I think the general sense, if you were listening into the Parliament today, and this is said by some people of the opposition as well, is people were quite sharp about the Secretary General. This number 2 figure in the opposition just read out the UN Act and said that, while he’s completely against the actions, the demonstration, the sense was that the Secretary General seems to have overstepped his limits. But of course the sort of people in the joint opposition who were backing General Fonseka, obviously they seem to think there’s nothing wrong with it.
Now the UN itself has protested against this demonstration that blockaded the office, they’ve protested in fairly strong terms saying that they are in favour obviously of the right to protest but are disturbed by the fact the staff may be put at risk or at least couldn’t leave their office. What is your response to that? Do you think these protests went too far?
Well, as I said, I don’t quite know what happened. The paper today seems to imply that everything had been amicably settled and that the UN staff had left, apparently 4 people stayed on but I didn’t read the government paper, I read the 2 independent papers, these indicated that they stayed on their own will and they left quietly later. The problem we all have is, we do believe in the right to demonstrate but each of us gets very upset if we get personally inconvenienced, I mean I was highly irritated because of the traffic block today. But I suppose if demonstrations are allowed you have to put up with such inconveniences. I think as I’ve said yesterday, on Sri Lankan radio, anything that happens has to be viewed within the law, and the law says clearly you shouldn’t be making life impossible for other people. As far as I know life hadn’t been impossible and everything’s ended well.
Now, the Sri Lanka Government has also established a commission and the correct name if I’m not mistaken is the commission for ‘Lessons Learned and Reconciliation’ which is looking, I understand, at the last period of the War as well. That’s being quite strongly criticized by some international Governments and advocacy organizations, given some of the past records of the commission of the inquiry which I understand didn’t actually fulfill or end up fulfilling its mandate. What do you say to the criticism of the latest commission?
Well, I think the criticisms actually ignore the fact that we did set up a commission, indeed several commissions, and many of them have functioned perfectly well. I think there’s some irritation about the fact that the proceedings of the last commission have not been publicized. I think one of the problems that happened with the last commission is that we allowed what’s called an International Independent Group of Eminent Persons to observe and unfortunately not the eminent persons themselves but some of their assistants thought that this was a vehicle for them to object to the current Sri Lanka Government. We had lots of problems because they countermanded the terms under which the IIGEP had been brought in and I’m sorry to say some of these guys were Australians, the assistants. And there were all sorts of problems because it was felt their activities were political., I mean you have this very sad thing today when in Parliament the Minister of External Affairs actually read out from the American State Department report in relation to Sri Lanka which was quite a good report, it said that the Leader of the Opposition was encouraging the US to put pressure on Sri Lanka. And that’s one of our sad things that sometimes not foreign Governments but young people allow themselves to be used to apply political pressures within Sri Lanka and I think these young Australians were very very pally with the opposition at the time and that really was a problem for the IIGEP, but the commission actually made its report which is with the President and action should be taken. I mean, my own view is, if Sri Lanka is guilty of something it’s just for being very slow but I’m someone who happens to think we should act very quickly and compared to other countries we are actually quite quick. As you know when you look at things like Abu Ghraib and the Bloody Sunday inquiries, I think our record is quite quick but for me the sooner you do anything the better.
Sorry to interrupt, do you think that there is a case to answer for a strong investigation into accusations that War Crimes or crimes against humanity did take place in the latter period of the war? Do you think there’s a case for this to be strongly investigated or do you think that this is not ok?
Any case brought before you with evidence must be investigated. I’ve said this before, for instance the US State Department produced a report last October in which it said we have come across the following allegations and we very much welcome a response and I have constantly said that was a very well put statement because they didn’t presume guilt or innocence or anything, they simply suggested that we should be providing explanations to these and I think very correctly the Government said yes, I mean you know we welcome any allegations that are not blind or generalized. We made a distinction between that and the Channel 4 allegations which have been completely fraudulent. And one of the things we said about Channel 4, we said this to Phillip Alston, I’m sorry another Australian, when he said ‘Please investigate’, we said ‘Are you asking us to investigate a video or are you asking us to investigate an incident? If it’s an incident, tell us when it happened, where it happened or at least give us some clue.’ And Phillip Alston has constantly refused to answer these questions. And we told him if he didn’t know the answers, to check with Channel 4 or whoever informed them, I think he actually failed to get an answer from Channel 4 because, if you look at his last report, Channel 4 seems to have refused to even give him the original of the video. So we have a situation where people make general allegations and we’re not into looking into generalizations that do not give specifics but we have consistently said that if you give us incidents, we will look into them.
And so you are saying that up to this point there have been no accusations that have sufficient evidence or sufficient details for you to feel that there’s a justification to launching an investigation?
No, I haven’t said that at all, I have told you that the American report contains details and I think we should respond to them. In fact, the last time I was discussing this, I said, ‘Haven’t we replied yet?’ and in fact I was told that the report was imminently due.
I had actually pointed out earlier that I had answers to about half those allegations, because you know one of the reasons why we get a bit irritated is that, as Head of the Peace Secretariat, I used to monitor Tamilnet every day and get down any allegations that seemed to me to indicate inappropriate behaviour and I would get reports from the military at the time. And I have to tell you this, I still remember this statistic, the air force used to come out with very precise statistics, for obvious reasons any bombing raid was very carefully recorded, and for instance in a certain period there had been 458 raids and even Tamilnet only alleged civilian casualties in 29 of them. And of those 29 instances, 22 were instances in which only 1 or 2 civilians were alleged to have died. Now, 1 or 2 civilians dying is 1 or 2 too many, but it is certainly obviously not a case of either deliberate targeting of civilians, obviously not, nor is it prima facie evidence of carelessness. I mean you just compare that record – I’m afraid you guys are in Afghanistan as well – with what you people have been doing in Afghanistan, and the collateral damage is colossal compared to us. And I’m not talking now of government, I’m talking of what I used to look at in Tamilnet and I used to monitor this. So I do think it’s a bit highhanded of people to suggest they are concerned about human rights and we are not. We were, because these are our people.
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Rajeeva Wijesinghe, who belongs to the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka, is an appointed Member of Parliament on the National List of the governing ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance. Previously he was the Secretary-General of the Sri Lankan Government Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), and in June 2008 he also became concurrently the Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights.
© The Island
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sri Lanka panel holds 1st meeting in New York
By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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At 1:30 pm on July 19, panel members Marzuki Darusman, Yasmin Sooka and Steven Ratner met in the UN's North Lawn building. At that moment, at latest, the four month clock began.
Along with chit chatting about what hotels they are staying in and where to go to dinner, Ratner noted that since UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky said it would be up to the panel whether to seek to visit Sri Lanka, “we don't have to ask the UN's permission.”
The Rajapaksa government has already said it will deny visas, which Darusman called “unfortunate.”
As Inner City Press has previously reported, and has now further confirmed with colleagues in Colombo, Sri Lankan government sources are pitching the tale of Darusman bickering about fees for his prior position on a Sri Lankan panel when it disbanded.
While the motives of such pitches are clear, less clear is why the Ban Ki-moon administration or one of its advisers would have given the Rajapaksas such an easy issue to work with. We will have more on this.
On July 19, Darusman said he was just in from Jakarta. Ratner, in from Ann Arbor, Michigan, noted that the UN listed hotels, that the UN will pay for, don't in fact have a UN rate. The Bentley, he said, is still not too expensive.
There was a discussion of the more expensive Millennium Hotel, and of meeting over dinner in the Italian restaurant across the street.
It is Padre Figlio; inquiry by Inner City Press mid-day Monday found $86 Porterhouse steak on the menu. (In fairness, it is for two. A single portion of Chilean sea bass costs $32).
Having met with the Department of Political Affairs of Lynn Pascoe, the panel was set to meet with Nicholas “Fink” Haysom at 2 pm. They were then observed, at 3:17 p.m., leaving the UN campus and entering the DC-1 building, with the Millennium Hotel, at 3:20 pm. The four month time clock, and expense accounts, have begun.
© Inner City Press
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sri Lanka: Jus Ad Bellum ?
By Chandi Sinnathurai | Counter Currents
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The plight of the trapped Tamil civilians was an open secret. But no international player called for the war to halt in order for civilians to be evacuated. Why? Because the international intelligence community knew, in this strategic push, the Tiger leadership, including V Prabaharan and his family were getting cornered. The submarine-escape of the tiger leader/s was not worth trying as the Indian naval force was on high alert. Total neutralisation of the leadership was part of the plan. Hence, no one - not even the UN wanted to miss this 'golden opportunity.' And the war ended as it did.
Even the so-called 'White flag' incident of some Tiger political leaders organised by the UN officials were seriously flawed. All of them were shot and killed.
The global WAT project, gave Lanka the cover of Jus Ad Bellum - "Right to wage war." There was an international consensus, particularly among powerful nations, that Colombo entering into war or the push into the "Nascent state of Tamil Eelam" is justifiable. This is not a war against the Tamil people, it was declared. But this is a war against terror. The argument of a just war did not enter in, but to all the international actors, the war was certainly justifiable - even when the trapped Tamils were getting massacred as human shields!
But now, when the spoils of war and the pie of development contracts, and multi-billion dollar deals are getting distributed - particularly between India and China, suddenly there is a change of direction in the international trade winds.
Once the blood is shed, people are maimed, massacred, scarred and traumatised for the rest of their lives, and mass burials have occurred in the heat of the war...Now that the mission is accomplished, and the war is over...The accusing finger is pointed. War crimes? Crimes against humanity? War in its very intrinsic nature is a crime. No one wanted to halt the war and rescue the civilians - that is a terrible crime. How many are responsible on the international stage for such a horrendous war crime?
The international community never once admitted that there is a genocide happening in Sri Lanka.
The retired General Fonseka was leading the crime against the Tamils and now he is pretending to be whiter than white!? Yes, invoking Jus Cogens could also mean that, Sarath Fonseka can claim the non-applicability of the defense of "obedience to superior order." Rajapaksha regime wanted to wipe out the tigers, and they did it with the support of the international community. The UN very well knew then, as it does now that, this was war conducted without any witness. So were the war in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan. What we hear in the corporate media about these wars is about what we need to hear. Not much is said about the plight of civilians. So now, what's all this kicking up the dirt? What a lot of hypocrisy!
In all this finger pointing, politicking and big money legal wrangling, sadly the spirit of the law is buried. The tears and pain of the poor and destitute Tamils continues in IDP camps and else where. What crime did these innocent women, men and children commit to deserve such squalid and shabby treatment?
That is truly a crime against a sea of "living" humanity. That ought to be the priority of the global Tamils. The rest can play with high brow Latin words.
© Counter Currents
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Post-war justice in sri lanka : International Commission of Jurists
Evidence of Police Brutality in Sri Lanka
A Study of Police Torture in Sri Lanka
