By: Nevil De SilvaThat private view would be shared by many and one does not need to catalogue all the evidence as though presenting a bundle to court. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear would not have any difficulty in reaching that conclusion. The pity is that those who demand incontrovertible evidence that the actions of the government and its agencies have not soured our relations with the world do not set the same rigorous standards for themselves when they make blithe statements.
In the same manner we demand “hard evidence” from multilateral organisations and international NGOs, the government too should back its statements and conclusions with such irrefutable proof. This is not to say that accusations made and conclusions drawn in mission reports on Sri Lanka by international organisations such as UN and INGOs are always backed by the kind of evidence that would stand up in court.
In fact there are numerous instances where charges made have been largely based on hearsay and the names of those persons have, for understandable reasons, not been disclosed. So verification becomes well nigh impossible. This does not mean that those who have come to report on, say, our human rights situation, are deliberately cooking the books as it were, though such culinary activity has not been unknown by persons and organisations with dubious motives.
It might be recalled that Alan Rock was among those who levelled serious accusations of human rights violations against Sri Lanka. He charged “certain elements of the government security forces” of “supporting and sometimes participating in the abductions and forced recruitment of children by the Karuna faction.”
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