| by L.Annadoure
“If Somebody from the Army had done that, I must take responsibility!” swore the Sri Lankan President Shri Mahinda Rajapakshe.
( December 11, 2013, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) While being interviewed by ‘The Hindu’ the Sri Lankan President has denied the killing of LTTE Chief Prabakaran’s 12 year old son Balachandran by the Army and he has owned criminal responsibility categorically if some body from the Army had killed the boy and we may hope that the Sri Lankan President would keep his words and bear responsibility in the event of there being sufficient proof that the boy was executed without a formal pronouncement of judgment for the crime for which he would be indicted and prosecuted before the Sri Lankan Criminal court and before he was killed he was given water and biscuits as goats and other animals would be fed on rich fodder before they would be slaughtered. Having Fed the boy with biscuits and given water to drink before he was shot to death was purely an humanitarian work on the part of Sri Lankan Army and the stark reality is, as everybody is aware, the Eelam Tamils were herded into as droves of cattle would be driven, rounded up and cornered in short space and then showered with proscribed weapons like cluster bombs, chemical and incendiary bombs including napalm so as to annihilate them which act was said to be a piece of humanitarian work done by the Sri Lankan Army.
The Sri Lankan Army is a disciplined army as they do maintain. Enquiry proceedings have now been initiated for a rape crime against one of the Sri Lankan soldiers who have been recently sent to Haiti to be part of NATO peace keeping force and we may recall to mind of NATO having sent away 133 Sri Lankan soldiers earlier for rape committed on the minor Haitian girls. Nearly three years have gone by since the Sri Lankan soldiers were sent away and they have not been prosecuted before a court of law down to this day and failure to court martial them only serve to show that rules and Regulations and laws in the country are meant only for minorities. It is said that 78,000 men have had deserted the Army and it is very doubtful whether criminal or court martial proceedings have ever been initiated against fugitives from law and it is also said that most of the crimes that are committed in Sri Lanka are only by such of the deserters who are being patronized by politicians. A bloated and redundant army is letting loose a reign of terror over the Eelam Tamils. The Eelam Tamils have been dispossessed forcibly of their households, hundreds and thousands of their agricultural lands by the lawless and licentious Sri Lankan Army. The Sri Lankan President would continue to say while being interviewed that he is a Buddhist and he has tolerance and compassion and one is at loss to know as to towards whom he is tolerant and compassionate and one of the tenets of Theravada Buddhism enjoins annihilation of hatred but contrary to such a tenet over 2 lakh Eelam Tamils were annihilated from the face of Earth; several thousand Eelam Tamils have been maimed for life and more than 98 thousand women have been widowed by the Compassionate Sri Mahinda Rajapakshe. Let the president be tolerant henceforth towards the EelamTamils, respect their language, their religion and their right to live as distinct peoples and let him be the Light Of Asia when so much of havoc and destruction have been done against them and still continue to do so.
On the assurance made by Minister Basil Rajapakshe and the defence Secretary Gotabaiya Rajapaskshe through foreign intermediaries that the life and person of some high ranking and minor cadre of LTTE who wanted to surrender would be safe and believing their words they had surrendered before the Army along with their women and children on the 17th , 18th and 19th May 2009. The Sri Lankan President will admit the factum of such a surrender.
Thirumathi Anandhi Sasidharan who has been elected as a member of Northern Provincial Council and who is the wife of Ezhilan who was the head of the Political wing of LTTE for Trincomilee, has been interviewed by BBC Tamizhosai and she has stated that her husband Ezhilan had surrendered before the Sri Lankan Army in her presence and like wise several hundred LTTE lesser leaders had surrendered before the Army. Some of the important persons who had surrendered before the Army were Yogirathinam Yogi, Lawrence Thilagar, Ilamparithi, Poovanan, Priyan, Dheepan, Raja and his three children, Babu, Catholic Father Francis Joseph, Poet Rathinadurai, Balakumar, Karikalan, Ilangkumaran (Baby Subramanian) at Vattuvakkal on 18th May 2009. The place where the aforesaid persons first came to surrender was an open field bound by barbed wire fence which was situate just a little away after crossing the Mullaithivu Vattuvakkal bridge and on the same night on reaching another open field there was a small building situate and there they had surrendered before the Army personnel. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/tamil/search/?scope=tamil&q=)
Colonel Ramesh of LTTE had surrendered before the Army on 18th May 2009 as other LTTE personnel did and no sooner had he surrendered before the army then he was subjected to interrogation and he was questioned as regards the whereabouts of the LTTE’s chief Prabakaran’s son and wife Madhi Vadhani and Colonel Ramesh had answered that he knew not their whereabouts and the entirety of video footage of the interrogation of Colonel Ramesh conducted by the army is available in You Tube.
On the 19th May, 2009 at about 7.30 AM the LTTE Chief’s younger son Balachandran along with five body guards had surrendered before the 53rd Battalion. A Sinhala web site had published the afore mentioned information and it had continued to state that it was Major General Kamal Gunratne who had shot the minor Balachndran to death and while being interrogated the minor boy Balachandran seemed to have answered that on the night of 18th May 2009 two boats were kept in all readiness at the Nandhi kadal area and his mother Madhi Vadhani had left in one of the boats and that he did not know as to what had befallen her.
Former Commander and General of Sri Lankan Army Sarath Fonseka had stated that at the last stage of the Eelam war, it was discerned that the LTTE cadres had been wearing military uniforms similar to the military uniforms worn by Indian Soldiers and he added by stating that in the pictures that have had come up pertaining the killing of minor boy Balachandran the persons found standing near the boy appeared in Indian Military uniforms and such kind of uniforms were not worn by the Sri Lankan soldiers and he had continued to state that Sri Lankan Army did not have or construct proper bunkers and he had hinted that the Sri Lankan Government could avoid international interference by conducting a proper investigation into the crimes all by itself or subjecting itself to an international investigation as regards the accusations.
Sri Lankan Military Authorities had stated that a Sri Lankan Television reporter who was operating at the war front was the one who had given away the picture to the overseas LTTE Sympathisers and the army had identified the said reporter and the said Television reporter had left Sri Lanka with his family members who are living in a western country at present. The Sri Lankan President while attending a function organized by the Army on 22.3.2013 in Gurunagal had been contemptible of the act of the Television Reporter by stating that the Television Reporter had sold himself for dollars. The statements of the Army and the speech of the President only indicate that the video footage, and photos which are current in the public domain are genuine and not fabricated as they ventured to allege initially.
Sarth Fonseka’s deposition and the grim silence on the part of Indian Government
The instances of controversy as regard the active participation of Indian Army during the last stages of the war is ever mounting and some of the factual aspects of the war like the President of Sri Lanka making unequivocal admissions that he only fought and completed India’s war, Sarath Fonseka pointing his fingers at the aspect of Indian participation in the war and the revelation of acceptance of the surrender and later execution of the minor boy Balachandran and his body guards by way of reprisal and such other accusations have made the position of Indian Government very precarious and the Indian Government has not rebutted such accusations yet. Former Commander and General, Sarth Fonseka is giving a cue and indirectly pointing fingers at the Indian Army personnel for having actively participated in the war and that LTTE had camouflaged themselves in Indian Military uniform only makes imperative on the part of Indian Government to answer in respect of the accusations! It is very clear that at the place where minor boy Balachandaran and his body guards were shot dead were the present Indian army personnel and it becomes equally clear as leaves to a tree that both India and Sri Lanka had conjointly committed several war crimes. The instances of commission of several war crimes conjointly by India and Sri Lanka have just begun to emerge.
It has come to light that the minor boy Balachandaran who along with his five Body Guards having been surrendered before the Sri Lankan army were shot dead after interrogation with the help of MP5 Uzi Sub machine gun which is a light weight weapon and use 9mmX19 mm bullets and such type of gun is being manufactured in Israel and such guns are being widely used in 90 countries.
During the last phase of the Eelam war and more particularly during the month of Feb 2009 a LTTE member who had fled the country for a foreign country had informed that during the hostilities there was paucity of weapons in the hands of LTTE and several members were sent abroad to procure arms. Although LTTE had fought by using 30mm and 50 mm calibre guns Sri Lankan force had over powered the LTTE by using MP5 light weight Sub machine guns and advanced into the LTTE lines and that was why the Sri Lankan Army was able to advance faster and the Army was able to get requisite munitions steadily but whereas supply of munitions to LTTE was completed cut off and the said person had stated that the Army should have shot the body guards first and later the minor boy Balachandran should have been taken to an higher officer who should have shot the boy with the help of MP5 uzi sub machine gun because the military personnel in the 53rd Battalion were provided with MP5 uzi sub machine guns and such guns would cause only small gun shot wounds and bleeding from such a wounds would be less.
The minor boy was given water to drink and a biscuit packet and then he was asked to sit in the bunker as the pictures would give one to understand and while the boy was eating the biscuits his attention was drawn to the scene where other persons were being interrogated and later were shot to death by the 53rd Battalion. The minor boy Balachandran was not shot at his back but at the front and there were two gun shot wounds on the right side of his chest and two shots wounds on the left side of his chest and the boy would have known he was going to be shot and he was shot to death without humaneness and the Commander in chief of military force would say he was tolerant and compassionate. The minor boy was killed one and half hour after himself and his body guards had surrendered before the Army. It has come to be known at present that the Army had informed the political leaders and the Defence secretary at Colombo for further action and after having received necessary instruction and orders the Army had killed the boy. Here, the Army had initially denied the boy found in the picture was the younger son of LTTE Chief and later the Army had retracted its earlier statement and the Defence secretary had admitted that that the minor boy Balachandran was the younger son of LTTE chief but he might have been caught in the cross fire and got killed. The Army had not alone killed the minor boy Balachandran and his five body guards but also other important persons in LTTE and their womenfolk who had surrendered. Two high ranking Sri Lankan military officers who fled the country and who while being interviewed by Channel 4 had admitted that the younger son of LTTE Chief and his 5 body guards were shot dead and the bodies were burnt by the Army.
Major General Kamal Gunaratne had conveyed the information and details which he had gathered from the minor boy Balachandraan to the Defence Secretary on his mobile phone and the Defence secretary in turn had informed the matter to Karuna Amman who had advised him that minor boy Balachandran should be killed else there would be every possibility of the boy becoming the next LTTE leader and further if the boy were to be prosecuted then he would be released by the courts owing to age of minority. Sarath Fonseka had stated to the “Sunday Leader” on 13th December 2009 that Gothapaya Rajapaskhe had ordered the persons surrendered before the Army to be shot. Impetuous Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India who used to interlope unwarranted in all matters to which he is not connected directly has claimed the pictures were morphed. The minor boy and his body guards were killed in calculated and deliberate manner and it was cold blooded murder and therefore the Sri Lankan president, the Defence Secretary, Karuna Amman are directly and vicariously liable to be prosecuted for committing grave breaches of Geneva Convention.
The only fault on the part of Minor boy Balachandran was being the younger son of LTTE Chief Prabakaran and the minor boy Balachandran did not take part in the hostiltites and he was a civilian who was surrendering before the Sri Lankan force. Wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment perpetrated aginst the prisoners of war or civilians who were taken captives by the Sri Lankan Army are acts of grave breaches of Geneva Convention,1949. Killing of the minor, his body guards and thousands of others who had surrendered before the Army on the 17th, 18th and 19th May 2009 was genocide and it is being said that in all 17,000 civilians and prisoners of war who had surrendered were killed by the Army. It has to construed that there was complicity in genocide pertaining the Nations which had actively participated in the war against the LTTE. The civilians and prisoners of war who had fallen into the hands of the Sri Lankan Army ought to have been treated humanely without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth and the Geneva convention prohibits the acts of violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture and the civilians and the prisoners of war should not have been executed without pronouncement of judgment in respect of the offence if any committed by such persons. Therefore the Commander in chief of the Sri Lankan Army, the Defence Secretary Mr. Gotabaya Rajapakshe , Major General Kamal Gunaratne who was said to have shot the boy and Karuna Amman who had abetted the commission of the crime and others who had planned,instigated, ordered, committed in one way or another or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of genocide, crimes against humanity are individually responsible and such persons are to be prosecuted before the appropriate National court in accordance with law and procedure and were a special International tribunal or court to be constituted in the meanwhile then such tribunal or court might take up and continue with prosecution of the perpetrators of the crime.
Express my sincere thanks to Athirvu .Com, Tamil win.
