Sri Lankan Muslims in Muttur , photo by Nuwan Jayatilleke from Muttur
A masked man identified individuals among the crowd, who were accused of being members of Jihad, and they were tied up by the LTTE. There are conflicting reports as to what happened next, with some stating that the LTTE began firing at the men. A shell landed in the vicinity reportedly killing some of the LTTE cadres and the fleeing Muslims. It is still unclear as to how many of the men were abducted by the LTTE, with rough estimates ranging from 30 to 60 and how many were killed in the explosion or shot by the LTTE.In a paper by Mirak Raheem titled ‘Muttur: A Betrayal of a Community’ – probably the most detailed account of the tragedy published during its early aftermath – both the SLArmy as well as the LTTE have been charged with indiscriminate shelling of the town and causing immense suffering to its civilian inhabitants by way of both death and injury as well as large-scale eviction. Sri Lanka government, in particular, is criticised in the paper for its seemingly callous neglect of the safety of Muslims of the area. However, its statement that “(F)inally on the 5th (August), three days after the battle began, it seemingly ended, as the government intensified its attack and moved into secure control over the town and the LTTE made a strategic withdrawal from Mutur (sic.)” is of direct relevance to the specific issue on which the present study is focused, for, it implies continuing armed confrontations in the town on 4 August, the day on which the ACF workers were killed. In addition, the following extract from this paper provides a glimpse of the nature of LTTE relations with the Muslim community at the time of their evacuation of the town.
“When the Muslim community took the decision to leave south to Kantale, the LTTE said it would provide safe passage and even drinking water. Between the third mile-post and Pachanoor the LTTE cadres’ behaviour abruptly changed – they began to verbally and physically abuse the civilians and demanded that the men should separate from the women and youth under 15. A masked man identified individuals among the crowd, who were accused of being members of Jihad, and they were tied up by the LTTE. There are conflicting reports as to what happened next, with some stating that the LTTE began firing at the men. A shell landed in the vicinity reportedly killing some of the LTTE cadres and the fleeing Muslims. It is still unclear as to how many of the men were abducted by the LTTE, with rough estimates ranging from 30 to 60 and how many were killed in the explosion or shot by the LTTE”.
While preliminary investigations were still under way, the notion that a ‘Mai Lai’ type of massacre by the SLArmy had occurred at Muttur gained currency. Its origin has to be traced to Henricsson’s clumsy logic. Its propagation was, of course, the result of the coordinated campaign of propaganda by various agencies which, with diverse motives and impulses, have tended to lean towards the LTTE especially over periods featured by its military defeats and other setbacks. Certain well known human rights organisations – those that have had a record of silence in the face of atrocities of unimaginable brutality committed by the LTTE, and of justifying their silence on the grounds that there is no “hard evidence” to prove Tiger culpability – had no such reticence in pointing their prim fingers at the Sri Lanka Army. There was, in addition, the usual chorus of “genocide”, “holocaust”, “pogrom” and “extermination” charges from the LTTE propagandists and front organisations.
A discrepancy between the ballistics report submitted by the Government Analyst to the Magistrate’s inquiry on 7 March 2007 and the findings by Malcolm Dodd (Australian pathologist invited by the government to observe the forensic examinations in October 2006) reflected adversely on the investigation procedures being pursued. According to the former report, the bullets recovered from the corpses were all of 7.63 mm calibre. Dodd, however, though his expertise is in the field of forensic pathology, had ventured to make the ballistic-related observation that the calibre of one of the projectiles he had recovered from the skull of a victim was of 5.56 mm. Needless to say, the almost spontaneous response of all external vigilante was to accept the latter claim and to imply that the ballistic findings of the Government Analyst could well be part and parcel of a cover-up attempt. Such an insinuation, it should be noted, disregards the fact that the bullets being of either 7.62 mm or 5.56 calibre is of no consequence to an identification of the killers because cartridges with both types of projectile are in use by both the army as well as the LTTE. What is of even greater interest in the context of this display of prejudice is that a second report submitted by Malcolm Dodd in which he has admitted to an error in his earlier ‘ballistic’ findings, and stated that all recovered bullets are, in fact, of the 7.62 calibre, have had no impact whatever on publications of the recent past (including, it is sad to note, a report of the prestigious International Commission of Jurists) which have continued to highlight this so-called discrepancy.
Certain observations contained in the two ICJ reports (Text Box 1) generate doubt on whether the CJC has actually adhered to the “distinguishing” characteristic which it claims for itself – its “impartial, objective and authoritative legal approach to the protection and promotion of human rights through the rule of law” – to the preparation of its reports on Sri Lanka. For instance, in order to substantiate its claim that the investigations conducted by the government of Sri Lanka are featured by a “disturbing lack of impartiality” (Paragraph 3 in Text Box 1), the ICJ report refers to Michael Birnbaum according to whom “(O)fficial police reports indicate that from the outset, prior to any investigation, the police had decided that the LTTE were responsible for the killing.” The ‘police reports’ (referred to by Birnbaum as those compiled at “the outset”) are evidently the records that contain the initial impressions of the investigating officer. These are usually based on an examination of the crime scene and haphazardly conducted interviews with on-the-spot informants – no less methodical than, say, the investigation of a truce monitor of the type Henricsson has shown himself to be. This routine procedure (similar to that followed in most countries) does not tantamount to formulation of conclusions, especially those that restrict the scope of subsequent investigations. Nor can the records be construed as indicating prejudgment and prejudice. Does Birnbaum or the ICJ imply that, had the police found at the outset of its investigations evidence of LTTE involvement in the crime, that evidence should not have been reported? Thus, by both misrepresentation of the purpose of the police reports on the Muttur killings as well as making no reference whatever to the actual contents of the police reports (which could be quite revealing, unless there is a presumption that the police cannot be impartial), the ICJ itself has committed the same offence of prejudgment with which it has branded the investigations conducted by the Sri Lanka police.Further, in its criticism relating to the subject of ‘collection of evidence’, the ICJ states that, “apart from the family members of those killed, no other Tamils of the area have been questioned (by the police)”. How did Birnbaum arrive at this conclusion? What the police places on record being evidence considered materially relevant to what is being investigated, surely, the record will not contain a comprehensive list of those questioned. Moreover, does this criticism imply that, in order to meet the level of adequacy demanded by the ICJ, it would be essential to record evidence from Tamil witnesses, regardless of the near certainty that, given the specific circumstances of this crime, those of the Tamil community (unless the were participants in the killing) would not have been present at the time it was committed? Does the ICJ criticism also imply that the government investigators ought to have gone on recording evidence from Tamil witnesses until such time that some such witness says that it was the army that had killed the aid workers?
Yet another suspicion which the ICJ disseminates without actually making a categorical accusation is that some of the ‘ballistic productions’ at the investigations could have been tampered with. The basis of this suspicion is that the items referred to were not produced at the magistrate’s inquiry by the authorised officer but by another, and that the sealed packets that contained the items were not opened in the presence of “an Australian expert observer”. Is there a display of naivety (if not traces of racial prejudice) even in this criticism? Had there been a genuine conspiracy to defeat the objective of the investigation, wouldn’t it have been possible for the conspirators to easily avoid any procedural irregularity?
In comparing the two ICJ reports, one also notes that the alleged “unwarranted interference” which the transfer of the inquiry to the Magistrates Court of Anuradhapura, made in the April report, does not appear in the July report. Was this due to a realisation that the charge made in the earlier report was later found to be unwarranted? Finally, as noted earlier, there is the ICJ persistence with the “bullet calibre discrepancy”, in disregard of the fact that it is unfounded and irrelevant to the determination of culpability to the killing.
How and why a group of seventeen aid workers (all, with one exception, Tamil) happen to be at the predominantly Muslim town of Muttur at such an intensely turbulent time has remained a mind-rankling question ever since the occurrence of this tragedy. In this context, the questions that have recently been raised (abridged as follows) by the Head of SCOPP, are, indeed, vitally relevant.
• Why were these workers sent to Muttur on August 1, 2006 – i.e. on the day before the Tiger cadres launched their attack on the town?
• Why were they not withdrawn, as workers attached to other aid agencies were, when, according to reports, some of them begged to be rescued
• Did the ACF act with a sense of responsibility regarding the safety of its workers?
• Why has the ACF refrained from paying any compensation to the bereaved families?
To recapitulate the facts relevant to the first of these questions: A group of young Tamils arrived at Muttur, a predominantly Muslim town, at a time when an almost week-long battle was raging in the hinterland of the town and when the capture of the town by the LTTE was imminent. Soon thereafter (on 2 August) a much larger group of young Tamils (note that even in the “battle field” not all LTTE cadres wear uniforms) arrived in Muttur, occupied it with the force of arms, and caused intense havoc and misery to the inhabitants of the town. While this latter group held sway over Muttur (i.e. 2 August) there was no reported attempt by the ACF workers either to request rescue or to escape from the venue of battle (the reported telephone conversations on that day do not convey a sense of desperation among them). Soon thereafter (from about 3 August), however, heavy fighting erupted between the LTTE cadres and the army. Given the embittered Tamil-Muslim relations that prevailed in Muttur, what specific “actions against hunger” were the young Tamil men and women employed by the ACF expected to perform? It is in the context of these considerations that questions such as ‘Why were they sent” and “What were they expected to do” assume significance.
The responses by the ACF authorities to these queries have hitherto been no more than a display of a level of imbecility which one does not associate with individuals holding positions of responsibility in organisations that have a global reach in the functions they perform. They have stated, for instance, that the T-shirts emblazoned with the ACF symbol worn by the aid workers should have immunized them from any danger. Implicitly, they have thus pretended both ignorance about the ground situation in Muttur at that time as well as lack of understanding of the reality that, for combatants (of both the LTTE as well as the army) constantly in danger of sudden death from any source and in any form, T-shirt insignia could hardly be of any consequence. Is this a pretence meant to cover a more sinister objective?
Implications of the reported information on the ‘crime scene’ from the perspective of motive should also have received the attention of the accusers of the SLArmy. The relevant information is that the corpses of the victims in the alleged “mass murder” had bullets embedded in the heads; firing had evidently been “close range”; the hands of some of the victims were tied at the back; and, as the Chief of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies was reported to have said, the corpses were placed on the ground face down when his team found them. These details, highlighted in pro-Tiger propaganda publications as evidence of not only a “mass execution” but also a post-execution “exhibition” of corpses, have been repeated even in reports published by reputed international organisations.
Admittedly, Sri Lanka is not unfamiliar with “executions cum exhibitions” conducted with the obvious motive of inculcating terror. The LTTE, for instance, has engaged in it on innumerable occasions especially in administering punishment to “traitors”. It was also a widely practiced terror tactic during the insurrection of the late 1980s. In the aftermath of the Muttur tragedy, however, no conceivable benefit could have accrued to the SLArmy by proclaiming in such a manner that a mass execution had taken place. Nor is there any evidence of an attempt on its part at concealment. Had concealment of the crime or confounding evidence been an intention, it would have been easy to place, say, a few guns and grenades amidst the corpses – not an entirely unknown practice among law enforcers – so as to make the killing look like an act of self-defence, while creating suspicion of possible collaboration between the ACF workers and the LTTE. What the army is reported to have done instead is to deny involvement in the killing, permit (as early as 6 August) a “relief team” dispatched by the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies to examine the “crime scene” and to transmit impressions to their Chief in Colombo (who, in turn, conveyed the information to the Reuter correspondent as early as 6 August), and then ensure, with commendable professionalism (in the context of the fact that the army control over parts of Muttur still remained uncertain), the delivery of the corpses to the District Hospital at Trincomalee, thus facilitating subsequent investigation. Is there in this conduct the basis for a charge of committing a “crime against humanity”?
About one year after the ‘Battle of Muttur’, Sir John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordination, while on a visit to Sri Lanka, was reported to have stated at an interview with the Reuter correspondent in Colombo that Sri Lanka "is one of the worst in the world” in respect of the safety of humanitarian workers. This came as a shock to the government mainly for the reason that both at Holmes’ meetings with various officials in Sri Lanka as well as at the news conference held prior to his departure, the impression he had conveyed was one of general satisfaction with the conditions under which those attached to aid agencies work in the country.
The post-Muttur attempts by various personages and agencies at denigrating Sri Lanka were expected to converge in an all-out attack on the government of Sri Lanka at the International Human Rights Sessions held in Geneva in September 2007, and to culminate in a major intervention sponsored by the UN in the name of safeguarding human rights which would, in turn, (hopefully) rescue the LTTE from the setbacks it has suffered in the previous months. As matters stand at present (late September 2007) this appears to have been averted (or, at least, temporarily halted) mainly as a result of the efforts of a few Sri Lankans including the country’s ambassador to the UN, Dayan Jayatillake, and the Head of SCOPP, Rajiv Wijesinghe. Judging on the basis of information made available to us by the press and other sources, they appear to have also demonstrated that the promotion of the country’s interests necessitates, besides the usual diplomatic niceties, the bold confrontation of duplicity, prejudice and arrogance.
Concluded
(G H Peiris ,Professor Emeritus, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka)
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