Sri Lanka lectures to the world on the levity of its war crimes and its serious breaches of the international law

By Satheesan Kumaaran

(May 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) After the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government won the parliamentary election in April this year, Sri Lanka appointed a law professor, G. L. Peiris, as the foreign minister who, for the first time, makes his week-long official visit to the U.S starting May 23. He the met UN Secretary, General Ban Ki-Moon, on May 24th at the UN headquarters in New York, as well as the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton on May 28 in Washington D.C. The learned professor also met several other U.S. politicians and down played the serious nature of the crimes against humanity, the war crimes, and genocide. He also lectured to them that in so far as the Tamils were concerned they could not have been happier.

Peiris was rushed to the U.S. within a week of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) holding its first meeting between 17 to May 19 at the historic National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the Constitution of the U.S was adopted in 1787. William Ramsey Clark (a former US Attorney General) and Domach Wal Ruach (the Secretary General of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) USA) were named as keynote speakers of the inaugural event.

At the meeting with UN’s Mr. Ban was discussed the proposed visit of UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe prior to setting up a panel of experts to advise him on Sri Lanka’s human rights accountability, and the entry of senior UN officials, including Mr. Pascoe.

While the professor was telling his audience that everything was hunky-dory at home, thousands of young Tamils were under detention or being killed by the Sri Lankan government. The government denies access to UN or any other foreign agencies to see the detainees. Yet, the Sri Lankan government continues to claim that they are treating the detainees humanly and after screening them releasing them. It is learnt from reliable sources that after their ‘release’ they are paraded before the media and then again arrested.

Despite claims that the Tamils have been liberated, thousands of extra soldiers are being deployed setting up new camps in the Tamil areas causing inconvenience and posing security threat to the civilians. The armed forces are seen wandering around the Tamil areas.

When the Tamils tried to return to their villages, particularly in the Vanni, they were sent back and disallowed to return. While it was made out that all (fictitious) land mines had been removed and all Tamils resettled, in actuality, the government is sending in hundreds of Sinhala families to live on Tamil properties. Despite the ongoing second-class citizen attitude, the government claims that it sees the Tamils as Sri Lankan nationals.

Don’t interfere in our affairs

The Sri Lankan government is trying its utmost best to step up diplomatic pressure upon the UN to abandon its proposed investigation into its conduct against the Tamils. The law professor with his previous diplomatic experience was selected primarily to rebut international accusations of human rights abuses. His mission is also to discredit the Tamil Diasporas who constantly expose their misdemeanours pressuring the international community to also launch an impartial international inquiry to bring the perpetrators of war crimes to justice.

Ban ki Moon flew over the Vanni in the company of the much despised Vijay Nambiar escorted by Sri Lankan defence officials, after the international community exerted pressure upon the UN to take immediate steps to stop the war in order to protect the remaining civilian Tamils from being massacred in the final phase of the Eelam War IV which ended May 2009.

Even after the Tamils were wantonly killed and over 300,000 ‘liberated’ Tamils put in concentration camps in Vavuniya and kept incarcerated within razor wires, Sri Lanka did not allow access to international aid agencies nor even the UN agencies to enter to visit the displaced.

On March 5, Secretary-General Ban told President Rajapaksa that he had decided to appoint a UN panel of experts to advise him on the next steps for accountability in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government responded by attacking Ban for interfering in domestic affairs, calling the inquiry panel “unwarranted” and “uncalled for.” Two months later, Ban is yet to appoint members to his panel. Ban’s inaction is sends a signal to similar abusers announcing the appointment of farcical commissions and making loud noises seeking to block all efforts for real justice, as stated by the Human Rights Watch.

After meeting with the U.S. and U.N officials, Peiris told the media that the UN panel would “have no legal and moral justification’ in interfering in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka as it is a sovereign state.” After Ban Ki-moon’s decision to appoint a special panel on Sri Lanka, UN Sri Lanka relations sank. After the meeting with Peiris, it is believed that top level U.N officials were not happy with Peiris’ response. He had told Mr. Ban that any international involvement would provoke a negative political reaction.

International Crisis Group hits at UN

A week ago the International Crisis Group (ICG), which is a think tank led by Canadian former U.N war crimes prosecutor and U.N High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louis Arbour, said there should be international inquiry into possible war crimes which it alleged were committed by the government and the Tamil Tigers towards the close of the war. However, the Sri Lankan government continues to espouse that the army killed no civilians whatsoever, only the hardcore LTTE fighters.

Arbour said the United Nations compromised its principles for a lofty goal: to preserve the ability of aid workers to provide humanitarian assistance to those in desperate need of it. But she faulted the U.N.’s acceptance of “absolutely unacceptable” visa limitations on international staff and the U.N.’s decision to withdraw foreign staff from the northern Sri Lankan province of Vanni in September 2008, on the eve of government forces’ final offensive against the LTTE, leaving behind “very exposed” local Sri Lankan employees.

She cited the ICG’s case from June 2009, in which the United Nations “was slow to react” to the abduction and torture of two U.N. national staff members who were detained on suspicion of collaborating with the Tamil Tigers, and “made no serious protest at their mistreatment.”

Arbour said: “The U.N. should look at how it behaved in the whole episode...I think it's a very sobering moment where the United Nations should reexamine the price it is willing to pay to maintain humanitarian access…U.N. agencies allowed themselves to be bullied by the government and accepted a reduced role in protecting civilians, most notably with their quick acceptance of the government's September 2008 order to remove all staff from the Vanni...The Human Rights Council chose not to defend humanitarian law, but instead passed a resolution praising the conduct of the government. All of this has eroded further the standing of the U.N. in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.”

She also criticized Ban for meeting with President Rajapaksa and failing to press for an independent investigation.

Channel 4 News releases new torture video evidence

Britain’s leading BBC Channel 4 News carried new video evidence. A senior Sri Lankan army commander and frontline soldier told Channel 4 News that point-blank executions of Tamils at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war were carried out under orders.

Earlier, in August 2009, Channel 4 News obtained video evidence, later authenticated by the United Nations, purporting to show point-blank executions of Tamils by uniformed Sri Lankan soldiers. Now, a senior army commander and a frontline soldier have told Channel 4 News that such killings were indeed ordered from the top. One frontline soldier said: “Yes, our commander ordered us to kill everyone. We killed everyone.” The army commander said: “Definitely, the order would have been to kill everybody and finish them off...I don't think we wanted to keep any hardcore elements, so they were done away with. It is clear that such orders were, in fact, received from the top.”

The Human Rights Watch issued a statement on May 20 titled “Sri Lanka: New Evidence of Wartime Abuses” which said: “New evidence of wartime abuses by Sri Lankan government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the armed conflict that ended one year ago demonstrates the need for an independent international investigation into violations of the laws of war.”

The Human Rights Watch has examined more than 200 photos taken on the front lines in early 2009 by a soldier from the Sri Lankan Air Mobile Brigade. Among these are a series of five photos showing a man who appears to have been captured by the Sri Lankan army. An independent source identified the man by name and told the Human Rights Watch that he was a long-term member of the LTTE’s political wing from Jaffna.

While the Human Rights Watch cannot conclusively determine that the man was summarily executed in custody, the available evidence indicates that a full investigation is warranted. Several of the photos also show what appear to be dead women in LTTE uniforms with their shirts pulled up and their pants pulled down, raising concerns that they might have been sexually abused or their corpses mutilated. Again, such evidence is not conclusive but shows the need for an investigation.

The HRW further said: “Sri Lanka has a long history of establishing ad hoc commissions to deflect international criticism over its poor human rights record and widespread impunity...Since independence in 1948, Sri Lanka has established at least nine such commissions, none of which have produced any significant results.”

Despite allegations of war crimes, Sri Lanka’s government has managed to avoid an independent inquiry. But the evidence continues to mount. Sri Lanka is doing its best to exert pressure upon the U.N and other leading global powers which were openly vocal demanding international investigation, including the U.S. to give up their demands to punish Sri Lanka. Rather, Sri Lanka is expecting the global powers to forget and forgive the past, and inviting the international community to do business with Sri Lanka. As a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka is a real security threat to the global stability. This proves by way of how the Sri Lankan leaders and diplomats are treating the world when the responsible world organizations are oblique to do their duties.

(The author can be reached at e-mail: satheesan_kumaaran@yahoo.com)